St. Lawrence University Safety & Security are in the midst of an investigation into damage caused to two crew boats being stored in the parking lot behind Augsbury Physical Education Center. Sometime between Oct. 27 and 29, two crew boats that are being stored on the St. Lawrence crew team’s trailer were damaged. Safety and Security has been looking into the incident but, as of now, they have not been able to find the cause of the damage.
There were two boats damaged in the incident, and the two were stored on opposite sides of the trailer. “One of the boats had a large section smashed in which punctured all the way through the boat, and another boat on the opposite side of the trailer had three puncture holes in it,” said Pat Gagnon, the Assistant Vice President of Safety & Security.
Both vandalism and accidental damage are being looked into as potential causes of the damage, but there is no clear answer yet. “We can’t be sure it was either at this point,” Gagnon said, “It’s still an open investigation so we’re looking into both as to what may have happened.” Accidental damage could have happened from the boat being hit by something, either while parked or while in transit.
The large section that was smashed in was on a boat on the highest rack of the trailer, it was considerably taller than the vast majority of people. Gagnon noted how someone would have to climb up the trailer on other boats to reach the damaged boat, something that would not have been easy to do. There were also no hand or footprints on any of the lower boats, including white ones that could have shown foot prints.
The damage on the other boat was even more curious as all of the puncture holes were 14 inches apart. “I measured the distance between the holes, and it was exactly 14 inches for all three of them,” noted Melanie Locy who was the responding officer. Additionally, the damage on the boats was done quite accurately with no signs of misplaced swings, and in one of the strongest areas of the boat.
The investigation is relying on witnesses to try and figure out what occurred, as there are no security cameras in the area where the damage happened. “That parking lot is low risk to students, so there currently are no cameras back there. I would like to see some back there in the future as it is one of the more heavily trafficked parking lots on campus,” Gagnon explained.
Gagnon decided to send an email blast out to campus to try and get any potential witnesses to come forward but he has received fewer responses than he had hoped for. The email did yield one tip about a lot of large equipment being moved around by Atomic Entertainment after The Campaign for Every Laurentian Kickoff Event. This was looked into, but after looking into this, there was no evidence that Atomic was responsible for any of the damages.
There were a total of six boats on the trailer with the damaged ones, and the other four were undamaged. The boats are worth about $55,000 each. The incident will remain an open investigation, and anyone with information should contact Pat Gagnon.