Laura Rogers was lying in bed in her sixth-floor Rodes-Harlin room last Wednesday when campus police called around midnight with disturbing news. Her Chevrolet Lumina had been busted up by someone in the Kentucky Street lot.

Her dashboard was ripped off, her passenger side window broken. Forty-eight compact discs stolen. Rogers scampered down to the lot. Shattered glass littered the pavement.

She wasn’t alone.

Campus police are investigating 11 car break-ins that have plagued campus in the last eight days. Seven of the incidents occurred in the relatively small Kentucky Street lot.

Capt. Eugene Hoofer said campus police do not know if a single person or a group of people is responsible. Police do not have a suspect.

“We caught several last year doing it,” he said. “But you can never guess when they’re going to start hitting.”

The other four break-ins were in the parking structure and the Center Street and Adams Street lots.

The incidents accounted for more than $6,000 in stolen or damaged property, including CDs and CD players.

“My biggest advice is get rid of your visor CD carriers,” Hoofer said. “It’s like an advertisement.”

He said students should also take CDs out of their vehicles when parked on campus. A CD case is a tip that the car has a CD player.

Hoofer also said students should not leave other small property, like cell phones, in their vehicles.

Rogers, a Canmer sophomore, parked in the Kentucky Street lot because it was near her dorm. She had considered trees near the lot and lack of lighting a risk before parking there.

“I should have known better than to park there,” she said.

Now she’s driving her parents car until her Lumina is repaired. She’s parking in the parking structure, though she’s unsure if that location is any safer.

Maybe not. A break-in on the structure’s sixth floor two days ago left a car’s window shattered and $805 of property stolen.

Reach Joseph Lord at [email protected].