Earlier this week, the Auburn Police Division received a report from an Auburn University student of suspicious activity in the stadium parking deck. Rachel Schmucker, freshman in marketing, said that she found a bike lock around the handle of her car door on the driver’s side.
“We received one [a report] of someone finding a padlock on their door,” said Clarence Stewart, assistant chief of the Auburn Police Division. “I don't think it prohibited them from entering the vehicle, though.”
Schmucker said that she had gone to the stadium parking lot on Sunday afternoon, after leaving her car overnight, when she found the lock.
“I went to my car and I was talking to my mom on the phone, and I looked on my car and there was a huge bike lock on it,” she said. “I didn’t want to think much about it, but then I realized that that’s a thing traffickers could use … so I got out of my car and drove away really quickly.”
After leaving campus, Schmucker sent her experience in the Auburn girl’s safety group, where they encouraged her to reach out to the police division and Campus Safety. She said that she was initially hesitant just because she was unsure of the seriousness of the incident but ended up sending a report.
“I didn’t know if it was that big of a deal because someone could have just as easily just found a lock, like, on the ground and just thought, ‘Oh I’m going to put it on their car just to mess with them.’”
Stewart noted that a lack of reporting is not uncommon in situations like Schmucker’s, because many people attempt to rationalize it in hopes that it’s not as serious.
“Typically, what happens is that, I think all of us have this ability that you can sense when something's not right, and sometimes we try to rationalize that,” he said. “And when something does happen, is when we [the police division] find out about all these other things, when, in fact, if we had known or some other things had been reported, we could have put all that intelligence together.”
Schmucker said that she had noticed more talk of instances like her's after speaking out and has become more aware of her surroundings.
“I feel like now I’ve heard of more and more of these instances happening,” she said. “I didn’t take it that seriously … but now that I’m in those group chats, I’m a lot more cautious about what I’m doing and what I find.”
As of publication, the APD has started an investigation. Stewart said that they will be reviewing video tapes to try and find out who was in the area at the time.
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Natalie Beckerink, senior in political science, is the content editor of The Auburn Plainsman.
