When junior Ayannah Carson opened up her locker after track practice, the last thing she expected to see was nothing.
“I put my stuff in the locker without a lock,” Carson said. “We came back from track practice, and everyone was freaking out.”
Carson, along with four other students, was the victim of a series of thefts occurring in the girls’ and boys’ locker rooms on May 21 between 3 or 4 in the afternoon. The items stolen are estimated to value a total of at least $550.
A May 21 Birmingham Police Department report states that “there are no definitive suspect leads due to the sheer number of individuals having access to the school and locker rooms.”
According to Corporal Ron Halcrow, Seaholm’s police liaison, this incident is just one of many thefts that have occurred in the past month alone.
“[There have been] so many in this month, the month of May,” Halcrow said. “There’s literally dozens of these things that come in.”
Carson’s phone was stolen and other students report having phones, wallets, money, car keys, a yearbook and a pair of pants taken.
“Nobody wants their phone stolen,” Carson said.
Senior Matt Leon lost at least $100 worth of belongings, including his wallet, keys, phone, and a pair of shorts. It’s not the money that concerns him, though.
“They stole my favorite belt, so that means more to me than the rest of the stuff,” Leon said.
Principal Terry Piper was out of the building when the thefts occurred, but he was notified by Athletic Director Aaron Frank that there had been a number of items stolen in the locker rooms. He believes that the incident could have been avoided had the lockers been locked.
“What I’ve discovered from my years of doing this is that about ninety-five percent of the time the items are not locked up,” Piper said. “No matter how much we try to remind students to lock up their belongings, it just seems that they’re too trusting.”
Carson said that she and the others affected were told the same thing.
“The administration said we should have had locks on our lockers,” Carson said. “I understand that, but that still doesn’t give someone the right to steal my stuff.”
Piper says that occasionally students who have items stolen have locks, but in most cases they do not.
“There are occasions when a student will tell me that they had the lock snapped shut,” Piper said. “It may be true, but if it’s a good lock, you need a good set of bolt cutters, and it’s pretty hard to carry a set of those around without being noticed.”
According to Carson, every victim of the thefts except for one did not have a lock on their locker.
The Birmingham Public Schools Board of Education recently voted against installing new cameras in Seaholm. Piper, who has been very vocal in his support of adding security cameras, says that they would have been very helpful with this case.
“This is a case where security cameras probably would have given us at least a good lead,” Piper said. “Without having cameras, we depend on somebody having seen someone in the area and follow up on that lead.”
Halcrow agrees, saying that cameras would have made a difference.
“Cameras would be a huge assistance in recovering a lot of this property.”
Despite such arguments, people like Leon maintain that cameras would not necessarily have aided in catching the thief.
“I still think it wouldn’t make a difference,” Leon said, “because of how many people go in and out of locker rooms.”
