KPIRG Offices Broken Into

KPU student group’s off-campus office hit with burglary last week

The Kwantlen Public Interest Research Group’s off-campus office was broken into by thieves last week along with several other offices in the building on 72nd street. The office door was found ajar by cleaning staff early Wednesday morning with the lock broken. An office computer, an IPad, and other KPIRG equipment have been reported stolen. A credit card and some banking information were also taken from the KPIRG office, but were later found abandoned in another office that had also been ransacked.

KPIRG is a student funded and owned organisation, meaning that the equipment is paid for from KPU student fees. To steal equipment from KPIRG or other student organisations is to steal from the pockets of students at KPU.

“KPIRG has an obligation to its staff. All KPIRG staff members should be working in a place where they can feel safe and secure and this recent break-in has definitely raised concerns,” says KPIRG administrative and research coordinator Richard Hosein. “We’re lucky that no critical or personal information was stolen about staff or students.”

Other organizations based in the Surrey office building were hit with break-ins as well. Most notably, a wheelchair valued at around $9000 was stolen from one disabled tenant. According to Hosein, a Gofundme fundraiser will likely be setup to help cover some of the cost of a replacement wheelchair for the tenant.

Coinciding with this break-in is a recent decision by the KPIRG board of directors to approve a move for the organisation to a larger and more suitable space. KPIRG’s new home will be located directly next door to its current offices, but the space—in addition to being larger than the current office—will be located on the second floor of a more secure building. KPIRG personnel are hopeful that the move will cut down on the chance of any future theft of the group’s property.

KPIRG staff point to this incident as evidence of a need for the organisation to have office space on campus. The organisation has been pushing for the Kwantlen Student Association and the university to grant KPIRG space on the Surrey campus for some time. Hosein says that he would like to have the office protected by KPU’s on-campus security personnel, as well as other on-campus security measures such as the recently installed CCTV security cameras.

“We’re an independent student society funded by students and run by students and we still are unable to have a physical presence on campus, and [the break in] is a good example of why we need space on campus,” says Hosein.

The Surrey RCMP was contacted as soon as the break-in was discovered and is conducting an ongoing investigation. In the meantime, Hosein says some of the building’s other tenants have been conducting their own side investigations by contacting local pawn shops and buy-and-sell site in search of the stolen property. Any information regarding the incident should be brought to the attention of Surrey RCMP.