PUBLIC SAFETY

Hillsborough Community College is committed to providing a safe learning and work environment for its students and employees.  Public Safety personnel are present at all campuses and provide support to all college locations. Each campus public safety office maintains a lost-and-found locker.  The department also provides on-call escort service for students, faculty, and staff.

Campus Escort and Reports of Suspicious Activity               813-253-7911

Emergencies (from college phone)                                       9-911

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“Don’t Become a Victim”

Most of us have had something stolen before. Whether something expensive or inexpensive it gives us a sick feeling inside and makes us angry. That overwhelming feeling of vulnerability and the question of, why did someone do this, haunts us.  Often times we look back at the situation and say to ourselves, “If I would have only done this or that” but, now it’s too late and our property is gone, our lives are disrupted and we’re left with that sick feeling.

What can we do to prevent this from happening? The type of criminal that we should all be aware of is the “Opportunist Criminal”. The name alone describes what this criminal is looking for, an opportunity.  An opportunity to take our property and benefit from it without getting caught.  This criminal is easy to defeat by just doing something very simple, taking the opportunity away.  Simple things like locking the doors to your car and not leaving property out in plain view takes the opportunity away. Something as simple as loose change in your center console could entice an opportunist criminal to break into your car.   Listed below are some tips that could lessen your chances here at school of becoming a victim of the Opportunist Criminal.  

¨      Lock your vehicles

¨      Don’t leave property, like GPS’s, computers, Ipods, purses, etc., in your vehicle out in the open.

¨      Don’t leave book bags, purses, or other property unattended. It only takes a second to lose it.

¨      Don’t carry cash or credit cards you’re not going to need that day.

¨      Be aware of your surroundings. If something doesn’t look or feel right it probably isn’t. Trust your instincts. 

Don’t be the one that said “If I would have only done this or that.”  Protect your property and sanity by not creating an opportunity for the Opportunist Criminal.

Roy G. Paz, Officer

Tampa Police Department

Special Operations Bureau

Special Incident Management Unit

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Thefts from Vehicles on the Rise!!!

                Incidents of thefts from vehicles, both auto burglary and theft of external equipment, are on the rise!

                Through the first 100 days of 2009, there have been six such incidents, all occurring at the Dale Mabry Campus, with only one theft resulting when the vehicle was locked … a “secure theft.”  In all of 2008, there were 13 such incidents, with 10 occurring at Dale Mabry, with three classified as a secure theft.  Of interest is that all but two of 2008’s thefts from vehicles occurred during the last three months of the year when more people may have began to feel the effects of the state of the economy.

                “Soft-top” Jeep-type vehicles were a common target, but in coordination with the Tampa Police Department (TPD), an undercover operation nabbed a HCC student in the act, who later confessed to multiple auto burglaries … and the retrieval of property … at the Dale Mabry Campus.  Dodge products, particularly the Neon, are more recent targets.  Besides theft of contents, these automobiles are easy to steal due to their ignition type and construction according to TPD.

                Here is what you can do to help the HCC Department of Public Safety (DPS) reverse this adverse trend in incidents of thefts from vehicles:

-          Lock your vehicles!  PLEASE!!!

-          Don’t leave valuable property, such as a GPS, laptop computer, I-pod, camera, purse, and the like, out in plain view inside your vehicle.  If you don’t really need it that day, then leave it at home!

-          Be vigilant …. be a “Hawkeye!”  If you see something that doesn’t look or feel right, it probably isn’t … trust your instincts!  Then call and report it to DPS at 253-7911, or flag down a DPS Public Safety Officer out on patrol.

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