Stanford Police Treat Missing iMacs as Possible Burglary

Between Friday and Saturday, nine desktop iMac computers disappeared from the computer lab at Escondido Village, the department has confirmed.

The iMacs, located within a secured common computer lab space in the residential hall, may have been taken between 1:30-5:30 a.m. on Saturday, said Bill Larson, public information officer for the SDPS.

"From all appearances, it looks like it was a burglary, but we are still waiting to confirm with the cluster manager," Larson said.

The call first came in around Saturday at noon, when a student who wanted to use the lab realized that all of the computers were gone. However, at the time, the department declined to classify the incident as a burglary, because officials had not been able to speak to the information technology and cluster managers for that lab.

But now, after speaking with one of the two people responsible for the computer room, the fact that a burglary occurred seems more likely.

"It's doubtful that anyone came into the computer room for maintenance during that time on a Saturday," said Larson. "We are treating it as a burglary."

The computer lab has been closed off for evidence-gathering, such as fingerprint dusting.

"We still want to get relevant information so that we don't lose anything for the future," said Lt. Kay Iida of SDPS, who was on duty Saturday afternoon. "The scene is still under investigation."