On Wednesday, Sept. 14, and Thursday, Sept. 15, four unlucky Ferris students were informed that their vehicles were severely damaged while parked in campus parking lots.
The damage was discovered by Ferris criminal justice sophomore and Department of Public Safety (DPS) service officer Bradley Gallagher.
“It was early afternoon and I was strolling through Lot 61 when I looked at an early 2000’s blue jeep and noticed muddy footprints on the hood along with the caved-in windshield and bent windshield wipers,” Gallagher said. “The first thing that went through my head was, ‘that is not supposed to be like that.’”
Not knowing exactly what to do, Gallagher contacted DPS for back-up.
“I called a more senior service officer to my location because I had never seen anything like this before while working at the department,” Gallagher said. “When he arrived, we decided the best thing to do was to call an officer and have them do a report. It would also look better when the owner of the vehicle came out if there was a real officer instead of a pair of neon vests.”
There were three vehicles found in Lot 61 near Brophy McNerney Hall on Wednesday and one found in Lot 5 near Bond Hall on Thursday having sustained damage ranging from a bent antenna, to broken windshield wipers, to a smashed-in windshield. There is nothing concrete linking the two incidents.
“There was no indication that the suspects were trying to break in or steal anything; the damage seemed to be strictly malicious in nature,” said DPS Director Bruce Borkovich.
Having worked at DPS for just over a year, Gallagher has never seen random destruction quite like this.
“Other than this one time—a very rare incident—the only vandalism I have seen before this event didn’t come close to the magnitude of the damage done to this vehicle,” Gallagher said of the jeep that he discovered.
There are currently no suspects in the investigation, but Borkovich urges anyone with information on the destruction to come forward. Ferris’ Department of Public Safety can be contacted at (231) 591-5000.