The camera dilemma: Rees Hall intruder caught on camera

Hannah Petrie was sitting in her dorm room on Feb. 21, 2022, when a strange woman opened her door. 

“There wasn’t a knock. There wasn’t anything,” said Petrie, a residential assistant in Rees Hall. “She just came on in.” 

The woman asked Petrie if she had keys for her. Petrie said no, and the intruder left. Later, Petrie remembered she had seen that same woman in the dorm during the fall semester, and she reported the incident to the deans the next day. The deans, campus safety and the Lincoln Police Department searched the dorm and ensured that the woman was no longer in the building. They then informed the Union community about the issue via email complete with pictures taken from the Rees Hall security cameras. These low-resolution photographs quickly became a topic of conversation around campus, with students and staff coming forward to allege they had seen the woman in other buildings. 

Rees Hall, like all residence halls on campus, has a security camera system that watches the doors, common areas and perimeter of the building. The incident on Feb. 21 is a reminder that these systems are limited in their efficiency. 

“Cameras are something that my department is always thinking about,” said Campus Safety Director Dustin Sauder. “Where they go and how many to add comes down to money ... I usually get to put in two brand new ones a year.” But, like anything else, cameras get old and need to be replaced. These replacement cameras come from the same budget as the new cameras. “It's a balance between, ‘I'm going to put a new one here,’ or ‘I'm going to replace this one,’” said Sauder. 

Although the camera footage showed the woman wearing dark scrubs and an N-95 mask, they did not show many details. Emily Patterson, associate dean of women, said, “If I had been staring at the camera when the woman walked through the back door, I don’t know that it would have raised a red flag to me because you can’t see the detail as clearly as I think we should be able to.”

Some of the cameras in Rees Hall were installed more than eight years ago, and they are not always in working order. There are segments of the day the intruder entered where there is no camera footage at all due to technical problems. At the time, the cameras were in disrepair, but they have since been fixed. 

The camera dilemma is still ongoing, but Campus Safety and the deans are working to update the system as best they can. In the meantime, however, they are urging students and staff to report any missing ID cards and to stay alert. “That's really easy to forget about because you're busy. You're thinking about homework or whatever,” said Sauder. “But paying attention to what's going on around you really does help.”

To report an incident to Campus Safety, call 402-486-2911.

By Annika Cambigue