Vehicle owners in the R lot have reported missing license plates on their vehicles.
License plates from across campus have gone separate ways from their vehicles.
“They’ve been targeting license plates,” University Police Chief William Vandal said.
Stolen plates have been recorded in the R parking lot, T3 parking lot, Dakotah Field, SF parking lot and the CFS parking lot.
Vandal said that usually the perpetrator is taking “about just one off the vehicle,” but the law in most states requires vehicles to have two plates, causing vehicle owners to order new plates.
“We don’t have any suspects at this time, but we’re still actively working the case,” Vandal said.
“One of the problems with this is, in my mind is that, how often do you check both your license plates on your car,” Vandal said. “It’s hard to get a good clean timeline, but we know it’s been happening this last semester.
“Because we have the parking lots, it’s good conditions to look at plates … y’know you’ve got plenty of them out there.”
Vandal added that nobody has been apprehended, and there are no suspects at the time. He said that the perpetrator or perpetrators could be anyone from junior high kids who live near campus to college kids.
He also said that the incident is not necessarily related to students other than that they own the cars.
Vandal said that students can protect their vehicles by parking under lights. “It’s always a good idea to do that regardless, for personal safety and everything else,” he said.
Vandal said another way to assist in preventing license plate theft would be to change the screws used to hold a plate in. He said that car manufacturers generally supply regular or Phillips head screws, and to change screws to something else would make it harder for a thief.
“If you make it difficult, they may just walk away,” Vandal said.
“Our hope is that someone might end up somewhere and see a bunch of license plates on the wall or hanging, we figure someone’s displaying them. But if they see or hear anything about license plates, that they give us a call or send us a Text-a-Tip that can point us in the right direction,” Vandal said.
“(With) any suspicious activity, we’d much rather check it out and it be nothing than the one time that somebody does not call it in and it turns out to be something,” University Police Lt. Adam Walter said.
Vandal asks anyone with more information to contact the University Police and Safety Office by calling 701-231-8998 or to Text-A-Tip to 701-526-6006.