Janitor thwarts theft attempt at music school

Officials suspect an attempted burglar who injured a custodian during a break-in Friday morning may be the same person who stole a student's $20,000 violin from the school.\nThe IU custodian was injured during a scuffle with the would-be burglar inside Merrill Hall, part of the IU School of Music. The suspect was found trying to gain access to a room that, until recently, contained a vault. The vault was moved in light of current security issues.\nAlong with the violin, a $5,000 violin bow, nearly $2,000 of recording equipment and cash from the desk of the School of Music's dean have turned up missing in recent weeks. \nThe School of Music reported Oct. 6, that its master keys had been missing for over a month.\nIUPD Lt. Jerry Minger said there were no signs of forcible entry in Friday's incident, which leads some officers to believe the suspect was using a master key to enter the building.\nKaylif Brad Bennett, a custodian, was near Merrill Hall's Room 009 when he heard what he told police was a "thump" from inside the locked room. According to police, when Bennett keyed himself into the room he discovered a man described as in his early 20s and dressed in all black. He said the man was standing on top of a desk trying to remove a ceiling tile to gain access to an adjacent room where the vault was moved to.\nThe intruder jumped from the desk and tried to flee when Bennett began grappling with him trying to foil his escape, according to police. In the scuffle, Bennett was struck with a chair and suffered a contusion to the forehead, in addition to multiple scrapes and scratches on his chest when the burglar grabbed his shirt, Minger said.\nBennett gave chase toward Jordan Avenue and Third Street, Minger said.\nBennett then called for police who arrived on the scene at 1:10 a.m.\nIUPD Officer William Munroe arrived on the scene first and told dispatchers he thought it was an armed robbery prompting Friday morning's shift commander Lt. Tom Lee to have a detective paged to process the crime scene.\nAlso among the first to respond was IUPD Officer Andrew Stephenson who stopped a man walking from the woods behind the Lilly Library.\nSince no description of the burglar was yet available, Stephenson detained the man who was shortly released.\nStephenson went to Bear's Place, 1316 E. Third St., after he had a description of the suspect in hopes the intruder had entered Bear's looking for an escape, but he was not found.\nDet. Richard Seifers, who is heading up this and the other related music school investigations, responded and processed Room 009. Seifers dusted for finger prints, but would not comment on whether or not the fingerprints provided any leads for the investigation.\nSeifers said he thinks this suspect is the intruder who committed the other crimes.\nBennett, who refused medical attention for his injuries, was taken to police headquarters by Officer Eric Mayo where Bennett helped a sketch artist create a composite of the suspect.\nAccording to Bennett's description and the composite, the suspect is a white male. He is in his early 20s, 5 feet 9 inches tall, thin build, short, greasy brown hair, scar on right upper lip, wearing a black trench coat, black boots and T-shirt.\nSchool of Music students were cautioned via e-mail last Monday to be careful with their valuables. IU School of Music budget director Royce Deckard said last week the locks hadn't been replaced because of the $30,000 to $40,000 price tag associated with replacing them.\nLee Griggs, a private consultant with a specialization in university loss prevention, said IU has more to worry about than a $20,000 violin.\n"What we're looking at today on university campuses is not only the loss of property but more importantly life safety," Griggs said. "There are an excessive number of rapes and assaults on campuses where people who aren't supposed to enter a building gain access."\nGriggs said universities like Duke and USC are in the process of transferring their entrance controls to electronic systems. The electronic access scheme supports a key card along with bio-metric access which features finger-print identification.\n"The nice thing about bio-metrics is it requires the body of (the authorized person)," Griggs said. "Gross negligence is now a big factor in many university law suits. If a university knew it had master keys lost and couldn't account for them all, when someone gets hurt or a $20,000 piece of student equipment gets stolen, the university assumes responsibility and can be sued."\nDean of Students Richard McKaig said the situation shouldn't be blown out of proportion, but it does warrant a few questions.\n"There are some settings where theft and loss merit concern but consultants are in the business of selling services so I would imagine they could always point out things that could be done better," he said. "Certainly anyone can think of hypothetical situations where very dangerous things can happen, but people need to think about what's reasonable."\n-- Contact senior writer Mitch Blacher at mblacher@indiana.edu and staff writer Brandon Morley at bmorley@indiana.edu.