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Easter morning between 4:00 and 6:00 AM, an unknown vandal or group of vandals broke into Flagler hall.
The building, which houses the University’s Psychology and English programs, as well as the school’s Career Services, Continuing Education and ROTC offices, suffered extensive damage on all three floors.
According to the Deland Police Department, “Doors were pried open, papers were scattered and rummaged through in the rooms, lamps were knocked over, broken glass was found, and computers had been damaged.”
After nothing was noticed amiss during their 4:00 AM rounds, Public Safety officers John Lugo and Julia Rodriguez noticed damage on the first floor when they keyed into the building later, on their rounds at 6:40 AM, and found even more damage on the second and third floors. Police arrived at 7:20 AM and secured the scene.
In the Career Services and Continuing Education offices, glass panels in the office doors were broken to allow the perpetrators to reach through and open the doors. In the ROTC offices, which have stronger glass in their doors, a fire extinguisher was used to bash in the door handles.
The majority of the destruction done on the second floor, home of the English department, was to door handles, as the criminals pried or bashed open the doors in order to gain access into the offices. Within offices, books were thrown from shelves, and in the Psychology department on the third floor, similar damage was done including several computer monitors also being destroyed. However, classrooms were not damaged on either floor.
Oddly, despite the damage, nothing was found to have been stolen from the building. According to Dr. Toni Blum, a Psychology professor and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, “The cash and easily portable expensive equipment was not stolen. Both paper records and electronic data remained secure.”
The damage didn’t seem to have any sort of pattern, something that has puzzled many faculty members. “The situation was bizarre and disruptive, but rather puzzling […] the damage was not nearly as bad as it could have been, had someone been truly malicious. The most expensive equipment was not damaged or touched.” said Blum.
Dr. Thomas Farrell, an English professor and the Chair of the English department, agreed with Blum’s assessment. “It was very random. Nobody could figure out a pattern to it. Most of the damage that was done was to doorframes and monitors, but not computers; there seems to be no destruction of work.”
Farrell said, summing up what seems to be the general consensus among faculty within the building, “It was distressing, certainly, but when we heard what had happened, all of us had visions of other, possibly more destructive, things. Not that we were happy, but there was a little bit of relief.”
By Monday morning, facilities management had repaired the damage enough to allow classes to continue as scheduled, albeit many professors’ offices were still without door handles and some computer monitors had yet to be replaced.
Compounding the oddity of the situation, an elevator motor burned out on Monday afternoon, in the process setting off Flagler’s fire alarms and forcing the building to be evacuated until the fire department could come deactivate the alarm system. The incidents do not appear to be related.
The vandals’ means of entry to the building is still unknown; for the moment, police are currently focusing on an open second-story window.
At this time, the police have no suspects, but bloody glass was found at the scene on both the second and third floors, along with matching shoe imprints that were presumably left by the vandals and 2x4’s that were presumably used to inflict much of the damage.
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