Jack Handey, an American humorist, once said, “I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it.” As students at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, we have been extraordinarily fortunate to live in such a trusting community. Unfortunately, that trust has led us to be attacked again

On Monday, November 3, 2008, at approximately 2:30 p.m., Alex Mahlan returned to the Lambda Chi Alpha house to find his laptop missing. He asked some of his fraternity brothers if this was some kind of prank. They confirmed that it was not and mentioned that someone saw a suspicious person leaving from the back parking lot about ten minutes before he arrived. The man who was seen in the house was described at around 5’8” with short, dark hair and a blue flannel coat. The getaway driver was behind the wheel of a beat-up black SUV and had a scruffy, red beard. Fortunately, Public Safety was notified immediately, and they even notified a nearby off-campus fraternity within half an hour.

Alex was not the only student to have issues with the thieves. Eric Fiedeldey, a freshman chemical engineering student, woke to see the then would-be thief attempting to take his laptop. Eric, after a short exchange with the thief, was able to deter the man and recover his laptop, while scaring the thief off of campus.

If you see any outsiders matching this description or their SUV, please contact the Office of Public Safety. Paying attention will hopefully prevent this already infrequent problem from happening again anytime soon.