Safety Concerns Mount at Paran Creek Apartments After Intruder Incident

The Paran Creek apartments are barely a 10 minute walk from the rest of the Bennington campus, and yet, they
usually manage to feel entirely removed from campus. This sense of detachment might explain why so few students are aware of a troubling security breach that occurred there last week.

At approximately 11:30pm on the 9th of October, a downstairs apartment resident reported a knock at their door from an unknown individual who asked for a phone charger. Once they complied, the individual returned the charger a few minutes later. However, they then began to question the resident they had borrowed it from– asking their name, and if he could be allowed into the apartment. When he was declined entry, he was reportedly seen walking the length of the Paran hallway accompanied by another unidentified male, with one upstairs resident saying they were “roaming around” the apartment after this initial interaction with the downstairs resident. Campus Safety notes that there was no sign of forced entry, and that these two individuals most likely entered from a door that was propped open or were let in by a resident.

This incident comes after a first security and safety issue earlier this term– around 2 in the morning on Wednesday, September 25th, residents reported seeing a man attempting to peer into one of the apartment windows. An email from Campus Safety reported that “[a]n officer immediately responded and found no one in the area” and that “[t]here was no interaction between the individual and any students.” Notably, the email does go on to say that Campus Safety would be “increasing officer patrols around the apartments during overnight hours” – a promise that residents say they feel fell short with the October 9th intrusion occurring just two weeks later.

“It is really unsettling,” one third-year Paran resident notes. “I definitely do not feel secure living in this building at the moment.” This, apparently, is a communal feeling: “My roommates and other students have said the same thing– we’ve started putting a chair under our apartment door handle at night.” Campus Safety in a statement has made it clear that “the patrols happened as promised, and continue to happen,” but that they are “not able to have an officer present at Paran all night, every night” due to staffing.

Campus Safety went on to comment the following: “There are nights where there is only one officer on duty, and that officer is responsible for monitoring the entire campus as well as multiple off-campus buildings, including Paran. On Friday and Saturday nights we have 3 officers on duty, because there are generally more incidents on [the] main campus that require our attention.”

A sophomore resident admitted they didn’t feel comfortable sleeping in their apartment after the intruder incident. “I wasn’t sleeping well, and every, like, little noise woke me up. I slept with a friend in her room on campus for a few days.” While they’ve since returned to the apartment, they do so reluctantly. “It’s not really sustainable to not live in the place you pay to live in. But why am I paying [for] room and board and all of that if I don’t even feel safe living [there]?”

Campus Safety has since relayed additional information regarding the October 9 incident. In communication with the house chairs, Campus Safety Director Paul Baker-Porazinski stated that the Bennington Police has since confirmed. While it’s unclear if the intruder was one of them, authorities confirmed that the runaways were later returned to their point of origin, approximately three hours from Bennington. However, this remains speculative, and students are more concerned with how easily an outsider could gain access to the apartments. The house chairs have both expressed their own concerns as residents and students, and shared the following statement:

“It is an irregularity for Paran Creek to have repeated reports of intruders in such a short period of time. We are concerned and monitoring if this is a trend, but for now there is nothing connecting the different incidents. We are also in conversation with Campus Safety and Residential Life to rethink what making Paran Creek more safe might look like, with more constant patrolling from campus safety or even long term security measures like installing cameras.”

The proposed solutions, for some students, only seem to highlight some pre-existing problems only coming to light because of these security concerns. “I find it bizarre that we don’t already have cameras,” one resident notes.

Campus Safety has made it clear that the security issues will not be a recurring issue, and that they have been in communication with the house chairs, residents, and local police to ensure student safety. “We are working together to come up with ways to make students feel safer in Paran.”