The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is still searching for a second man suspected of burglarizing a house west of Biola Avenue yesterday, according to Lt. Marc Boskovich of the La Mirada Sheriff’s substation. The first suspect was apprehended after hiding on school grounds upon fleeing the scene of the crime, forcing the university into lockdown.
“The second suspect is still at large: We don’t know where he’s at,” Campus Safety Chief John Ojeisekhoba said.
Staff and faculty were notified of the man’s presence and advised to remain inside while Campus Safety officers searched the premises on Tuesday. Students living on campus prior to the start of the spring semester were alerted via Biola’s Facebook page, although a formal notice was not given.
Typically during the school year, students are alerted to potential danger through text messages and emails. However, Chief Ojeisekhoba explained that because the people most likely to be impacted by the lockdown were staff and faculty, students were not directly notified as per usual.
In addition, the notification system will be getting a makeover over next semester, according to Ojeisekhoba.
“We have reassessed our notification system and are in the process of creating a new one,” he said. “[Information Technology] is working on that, and that’s going to happen in the next couple of months, when the contract for this current one is up.”
Overall, Ojeisekhoba said he was pleased with the fluidity of the lockdown. The procedure involves closing all of the gates at campus entrances, posting external signs indicating a lockdown and releasing email and text message notifications. Campus Safety also communicates with LASD during lockdowns to track suspects.
“It worked very well. … We just wrote the lockdown procedure about eight or nine months ago, because it’s very challenging to lock down this campus,” Ojeisekhoba said. “So the training we had back in August … paid off significantly, because we were able to work together as partners [with LASD] to search and coordinate.”
