“The big thing is, if you see something, say something,” Whyte said. “So, if you see someone potentially taking something that isn't theirs, be sure to report it to the police. We have a lot of instances where people will think someone else is going to report a crime and then it doesn't necessarily get reported.” 

One victim of the IM East string of thefts is criminal justice sophomore Simran Reddypogy.

Last Wednesday, on March 20, Reddypogy had an unexpected day off when one of her classes was cancelled. She headed to IM East, a two-minute walk from her residence hall Owen and the place she has been working out at since her freshman year.

As always, Reddypogu placed her dorm key, MSU ID card, AirPods, winter coat, wallet and sweatpants in one of the women's lockers. Sealing it with a Five Below metal lock Reddypogu bought herself, she went to work out for 1 hour and 20 minutes. 

When she came back, the locker was wide open, the metal lock was broken and all of her belongings were gone.

“I started freaking out,” Reddypogu said.

She checked the bathroom stalls, showers and lockers, "ripping the locker room apart" and "checking everywhere."

Reddypogu spoke to a manager at IM East, who also rummaged through the locker room, but her things were nowhere to be found. When she asked if the building had any security cameras, she was told the gym did not have the funding for it.

“It was an immediate state of shock and so much disappointment, because how did we not have cameras?” Reddypogu said. “I should not even ask, like I feel like you should have automatically been able to offer me, 'let's check the security cameras, and let's go check the footage' but you didn't even have a camera to go check footage in the first place.”

Reddypogu then called her parents to freeze her credit cards and file a report to the MSU police, which took about 30-45 minutes. After MSUPD officers checked IM East to no avail, they told her she had a slim to none chance of retrieving her belongings.

That day, Reddypogu went back to Owen Hall, picked up replacement keys and an MSU ID and went home. On Sunday, March 24, she received a DM from an IM East worker who had seen a TikTok she posted about the incident. 

“He was like, ‘I think the girls who took your stuff, brought it back because they found it in a separate locker and it was like its own locker combination thing and they had to break open the locker and they found my stuff in there,’” Reddypogu said. “They do locker checks every morning and every night, and they didn't see my stuff for the past few days, and then suddenly Sunday morning they were doing locker checks and they found out."

Reddypogu said everything but her airpod case looked “untouched.” However, the incident left her disappointed by MSU's safety precautions.

“It's such a shock that this is still going on,” she said. “It's not like it happened to the first one or two or three girls, and then there was a stop to it. It kept going. This school has so much money to build these new buildings ... we actually need security cameras and more safety precautions; they won't do anything about it. For this to even be a situation where I had to go to social media and bring it up and bring light and talk about it was already something that I feel like I shouldn't have done.” 

Communications Manager of the MSU Auxiliary Sports Group Ean Montague said IM staff put the safety of students first, and cameras would be a "privacy issue" inside the locker room. They are working with MSU Police and Public Safety to address these incidents, Montague said.

"We want to make sure that everyone feels secure and safe with themselves and their belongings when they're in our facilities," Montague said. "'If you see something, say something,' is something we've emphasized to our staff. We want students who enter our facilities to know that because everyone plays a role in helping each other kind of feel safe with this."

Whyte said MSUPD is not able to disclose camera locations due to safety and security concerns on campus. She noted that MSUPD is working with IM East staff and Student Life and Engagement on how to prevent further larcenies from occurring. 

For Reddypogu, the incident was particularly scary for her because of how the Feb. 13 campus shooting made her feel unsafe and she thought the university was taking the right steps to get better.

“Just not being able to comfortably go to my college campus gym is what makes me feel unsafe,” Reddypogu said. “It's just the way that I need to worry about these things. My things should not have been touched in the first place (and) that should have never happened. I know that things happen and we don't have control over it, but I think the university can do better and they choose not to ... there were no emails, there was no awareness nothing that the school did it's ridiculous and it's sad.”

Supply chain management sophomore Jack Lavin, who works out at IM East every weekday, said not having cameras is a problem and hearing about what happened to Reddypogu made him “a little nervous.” 

“So many people can store so many valuables there and all those lockers and have nothing to watch over it leaves a big empty spot for people just to take stuff,” Lavin said. “I usually bring my wallet and my room key – it made me kind of want to leave them back at my place, so I don’t have to worry about somebody swiping them.” 

Reddypogu said she doesn’t trust the university anymore because of the lack of safety measures. She emphasizes students to be extra careful and not bring valuable items to the gym. 

When Reddypogu returned to IM East the following Tuesday morning, she carried all belongings- from her sweatpants to her keys- from one gym machine to another.  

“I'm just going to carry my stuff with me and I will go do my workouts and I'll leave,” Reddypogu said. “I'm just going to be in and out because I don't feel safe hanging around in that building any longer that I need to be ... But I will not be leaving my stuff unattended in the lockers ever again.”