By Bryce Spadafora, Contributing Writer
Three St. Bonaventure University students took responsibility for vandalizing university property over last weekend.
Between 3 and 5 a.m. on Sunday, three students threw several items from the window of the second-floor lounge in Loughlen Hall.
Among the items were several tables, chairs, a couch, window blinds, a large flat-screen television and a cable box.
Housekeeping staff discovered the damage around 6:30 a.m. and alerted Safety and Security officers.
An investigation to find the culprits began soon after, said Gary Segrue, director of Safety and Security.
According to Segrue, the card readers used to access the residence hall played a role in determining who was active in the building during the time of the vandalism.
“With card access in several of the dorms, we were able to pinpoint who was coming in and out of the dorms in the early morning hours of Sunday,” Segrue said. “We knew what time the resident assistants went off duty that night. We also knew what time housekeeping went off that morning. We had a good time frame as to when the events occurred.”
A video surfaced on social media Sunday evening showing the students committing the vandalism. The video, posted by the admins of the Twitter and Instagram accounts @BarstoolBonas, showed at least three men throwing window blinds and chairs from an open window. Segrue confirmed the video helped lead to identifying the students involved.
“The video actually identifies one of the individuals by first name,” Segrue said. “We also knew what floor it occurred on. You can only get on the floor with a key. We narrowed it down and knew who exactly it was within a couple hours of being notified.”
Monday morning, Segrue released a statement to the university saying the students’ actions constituted the felony of criminal mischief in the third-degree. The crime can be punishable by a maximum of four years in prison under New York State Penal Law.
In his statement, Segrue gave the students the opportunity to claim responsibility for the crime.
Around 5 p.m., Segrue released a statement that the students responsible had come forward.
Local law enforcement did not get involved in the case. According to Segrue, it is not common for Safety and Security officers to get law enforcement involved for what Segrue called a low-level crime.
“The last thing we want to do here is give students at St. Bonaventure a criminal record,” Segrue said. “We usually allow students to come forward, but if it is a felony or a drug-related crime, law enforcement is involved.”
Segrue said the case has been handed over to Rob DeFazio, interim executive director for Residential Living and Conduct.
DeFazio estimated the cost of damages to be over $10,000. DeFazio said this number is based on the cost to replace the items from the lounge. According to DeFazio, the level of damage from the weekend is unprecedented.
“We haven’t had something to this extent,” DeFazio said. “We have had vandalism. Students have paid for vandalism and sanctions on top of it, but very rarely do we have vandalism to the point that reaches the cost and extreme damage that took place this weekend.”
This is not the first instance of vandalism on campus this semester. Earlier this year, students damaged the back door of the Bona Bus, a free, late-night transportation service offered by the university.
DeFazio estimated the cost of damage to the bus to have been around $3,000. Despite this, DeFazio said vandalism on campus has not been more frequent than any other semester.
DeFazio, along with a residence director for the university, will oversee sanctions for the students involved in the vandalism.
“They will sit down with me and one of the RDs,” DeFazio said. “We will go over the facts and the incident reports. We will give them an opportunity to explain themselves. We will review our code of conduct and talk about sanctions and consequences.”
DeFazio said he has not seen any correlation between the Barstool Bona’s account and vandalism on campus.
“I would hope that is not the case, especially when sanctions come down. If somebody thinks, ‘Let’s get on Barstool Sports,’ with the risk that they take by doing that, they will soon realize it was not worth getting on those social media sites,” said DeFazio.
