It can happen in just 10 seconds — that’s all the time a home invader needs to enter a residence and escape with a few valuables such as a credit card or a laptop.
Lt. Scott Wriggelsworth of the East Lansing Police Department, or ELPD, said that is likely what occurred in five apartment break-ins late Thursday night to early Friday morning in northern East Lansing, all involving unwelcome entrance through unlocked doors and apartment windows.
After the series of invasions, the ELPD is advising residents to keep doors and windows locked, issuing a media release Tuesday morning.
The robberies occurred in the Homestead Apartments, 426 W. Lake Lansing Road, and two other apartment complexes on Rampart Way and East Pointe Lane.
Four of the invasions took place at second-floor apartments with unlocked windows or doors, while one took place at a ground-floor apartment.
Wriggelsworth said he is not sure how the assailants are getting onto the second floor balconies, but suspects they broke in through unlocked entrances in every case.
“They’re crimes of opportunity,” Wriggelsworth said. “The more you can lessen your availability to be a victim, the less likely (it is) you will be a victim.”
He did not say whether the victims were MSU students, but said the areas had a high student population.
Criminal justice senior Kevin Remus was the victim of an apartment invasion last year when he lived at Haslett Arms Apartments, 135 Collingwood Drive.
Remus said he and his roommates always had been very careful about locking their doors overnight prior to the break-in — the one night they accidentally left it unlocked, an assailant entered through their main apartment door and stole two laptops and a wallet.
Now, Remus is more conscious of locking his apartment door.
“Everyone has their keys when they’re out … to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Remus said.
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