Man Arrested In Connection To Harvard Dorm Break-Ins

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Harvard University Police Department issued a campus-wide email Thursday saying they arrested a man on a burglary charge tied to a recent string of break-ins around campus.

Two of these instances occurred while the students were in their beds sleeping, police said.

The Harvard University Police Department said a man was taken into custody around 1 a.m. Thursday in the Harvard Yard after an officer noticed him "behaving in a suspicious manner around several undergraduate residences."

The officer then approached the man and "determined that the individual was a suspect in the previous burglaries in Harvard Yard," after another unlawful entry had just been reported in Canaday Hall.

While the university's police department did not release the name of the suspect, they said he will now be charged in two of the four previous burglaries, police said.

The university's police said four break-ins were reported while students were sleeping in Mower Hall and Wigglesworth Hall over the last week. Students say a burglar has been climbing into the first-floor windows of freshman dorms and stealing laptops, Air Pods, a backpack, and a wallet from the room while students were asleep inside.

This is not the first time robberies similar to this were reported, as Harvard's student-run newspaper the Crimson reported robberies just like these have happened multiple times over the past few years.

In September 2018, several students reported someone had climbed through the window of their first floor dorm and stole laptops, wallets and an iPhone throughout the course of the day, after a string of thefts were reported in the beginning of the month.

Then in Feb. 2020, four burglaries were reported in freshman residence halls, according to police logs released by the Harvard University Police Department. The earlier thefts are similar to those that occurred this week in terms of both methods and items stolen, police said.

The university's police department said even though unlawful break-ins are "rare" students should still not prop their doors open, or allow strangers to "piggyback" inside buildings using their access cards.