Several break-ins were reported over the winter break at the Miami Village Apartments. Three men were arrested in connection to the crimes. (ANDREW BRAY | The Miami Student)
Over the winter break, there were at least six reported burglaries of Miami University students' off-campus housing, according to Oxford Police Department (OPD) reports.
Among these burglaries was one that occurred at Miami Village on Dec. 23,. On this occasion, three men were arrested for taking a 32-inch flat screen TV and DVDs from an apartment in Miami Village.
All three men were taken into custody after it was confirmed by the residents of the apartment that it was their TV, which had been stolen.
As officers were investigating the apartment, they noticed another apartment had its front door kicked in.
Nothing was stolen from that apartment, but the three males were arrested for burglary of the first apartment and suspicion of the burglary of the other apartment. The tenants of both apartments were at home for Miami's winter break.
During the weekend of Dec. 10, there was another burglary at Miami Village. OPD Public Information Officer Sgt. John Varley confirmed the arrested men were also being investigated in relation to the Dec. 10 incident.
"Obviously they are going to be suspects, but right now, we are working on if we can tie them to it," Varley said.
Over the winter break both OPD and Miami University Police Department (MUPD) planned for possible burglary attempts.
The departments created a dual-response initiative to prevent and combat burglaries both off and on campus, according to Varley.
"Our departments had a cooperation and coordination of our resources during the holiday break," MUPD Lt. Ben Spilman said.
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During the break, both departments had joint roll call meetings with each other every morning. A roll call is the meeting each department has at the beginning of each shift.
"We were able to coordinate to check properties and parts of town that required patrol, which led to a very positive result for both of our departments," Spilman said.
Both Miami property and off-campus housing experienced a spike in burglaries over winter and spring breaks, according to Spilman. However, as most students move out in the summer, they do not normally see a rise in burglaries at that time.
"It was pretty quiet this break with very few incident reports and no spike in burglaries," Spilman said.
"I will say it was a success also because in past years, we made burglary arrests but a lot of times it came about because we would get them after the fact," Varley said. "This time, we were able to catch them at the house and have a direct tie right there and not have to back track."
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