Last Wednesday evening, at approximately 7:15 pm, there was
an attempted burglary at Headquarters. The perpetrator talked his way into the
building by convincing one of the cleaning staff (outside contractor) that he
was “here for the meeting”. This is a somewhat plausible explanation but the
woman should have not allowed access and this has been reiterated to the
management of the cleaning service.
When he discovered one of our staffers still in the office,
he changed his story to being “from the Geek Squad” and here to pick up
computers for repair. The staffer was immediately suspicious, left the building,
called one of our IT staff who confirmed her suspicions. She immediately dialed
911 and the police responded in force with 5 squad cars. The perpetrator was
arrested as he left the building, empty handed. There was an accomplice waiting
in the car who the police didn’t arrest as she had not been in the building.
We discovered the next morning that he had taken two
computers off desks and had them in boxes, apparently looking for means to
transport them out of the building. A review of the building revealed nothing
else out of place.
A subsequent voice mail from the arresting officer indicated
that this was a random event, and that the perpetrator had no connection to the
ARRL prior to the attempt. He also noted that he had apparently been successful
in stealing laptops from a business in another near-by town earlier in the week.
We will get a copy of the report when it is complete.
We will be reviewing the incident in detail after the Board
meeting to see if there are any other specific actions that management should
take in the future.
73,
Barry J. Shelley,
N1VXY
Chief Financial
Officer
ARRL, Inc—The National Association
for Amateur Radio
225 Main St.
Newington, CT
06111
Phone: (860)
594-0212
E-mail: bshelley@arrl.org