Laptops, the majority of which were Macs, were stolen from Menlo students on Oct. 31. Photo: Lauren Yang.

By Lauren Yang and Eliza Crowder

Around nine laptops were stolen from Menlo students on Oct. 31 during a school-wide assembly, which took place from 9:45 am to 10:30 am. “When we went to the assembly, while we were in there, somebody took laptops out of backpacks that were on the picnic table right in front of the college counseling [building,]” Director of Security Tom Hitchcock said.

So far, the burglars have not been identified. Numerous people, such as the construction workers and the Mac’s employees, all in the quad area at the time of the incident, were asked if they noticed anything strange going on. “Alex and Louis [, who run Mac’s,] were at the Sodexo snack shack and didn’t see anybody that didn’t belong there,” Hitchcock said. “There were a couple of teachers having coffee in the junior quad who didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. We talked to the construction workers […] and they didn’t see anybody that they didn’t think belonged.”

Video footage from Menlo College was also examined, but the identity of the burglars remains unknown.

The theft was reported to the police, who wrote up a report of the situation. All of the serial numbers of the stolen laptops were added to the NCIC computer system, a database that tracks and stores information of stolen devices.

With the help of Find My Mac, an application that attempts to locate lost devices, a student was able to conclude that the burglars were headed north. “One of the kids was able to do a track on his computer, and the last known place was on El camino, […] headed north,” Hitchcock said.

Hitchcock was most concerned by the timing of the theft. “It just seems too coincidental that it happened right [when we were having assembly, when everybody was in the gym,] and [happened when] there was nobody in the classrooms or in college counseling that could see what was going on,” Hitchcock said.

Hitchcock outlined a few takeaways from this event. “We want to make sure that whenever we have an an assembly like that, where nobody is gonna be in the quad watching those things, that we have a presence,” Hitchcock said.

He also added that students should utilize the lockers to ensure personal items do not get stolen in the future.

Menlo has discussed whether to add cameras to campus for security reasons in the past; however, they ultimately decided not to implement cameras because of the feedback from the community. “Several years ago we looked into doing cameras, but there was a lot of pushback from students and from parents because of the privacy issues,” Hitchcock said.

One student who had her laptop stolen during the community meeting explains how she discovered that her laptop was missing. “My friend who had left her backpack next to mine in front of the college counseling building […], came into my F Block class and told me that her laptop was missing from her bag,” sophomore Catie Cassani said. “She said that other students who left their backpacks in the same place as ours were missing their laptops as well, and that I should go and check to see if mine was missing too.”

After talking with Menlo security and Hitchcock, Cassani is unsure if she will be able to track down her computer. “Right now I’m not sure if we’ll be able to get our laptops back,” Cassani said. “All I know is that they are doing everything they can to get our laptops back, and I really hope they are successful.”

This is not the first occurrence of theft on the Menlo campus. “It’s about every other year that somebody takes something out of a backpack, but it’s usually one, not nine,” Hitchcock said.