[Updated at 12:17 p.m. Monday]
University police are looking for a man who broke into a dorm room on the ground level of Canyon Point on Sunday morning.
Heather Chow, the resident who was sleeping in the room at the time, said she awoke to a flashlight shining into her windows at 5:30 a.m., then called police, grabbed her laptop and fled the room when she heard the man bang on the window.
The third-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student ran to the second floor of Canyon Point and remained in the hallway, where she was able to hear the man break into her room, followed by sounds of police shouting at him to stop. She then went into a friend’s room on the second floor.
A few minutes later, police called Chow and told her to come to her room and talk with officers.
Chow returned to see a hole was smashed through the middle of her window and looked through her belongings to find that nothing was stolen. Police had not been able to apprehend the burglar, who ran away and fled in a silver car, according to a UCPD statement.
The man who broke in is described as being thin, black and between 5 feet 9 inches and 5 feet 11 inches. He was wearing a black sweatshirt and dark pants.
“It’s just scary to not feel safe in my room,” Chow said.
Christina Fong, a resident assistant in Canyon Point who lives on the first floor, said the building provides wooden dowels to students to force window screens shut, but her screen is still bent and broken.
“I don’t really know what else I can do” said Fong, a third-year neuroscience student.
Rachel Rivera, a Canyon Point resident, was off-campus over the weekend but said as a result of the break-in she will check her belongings more often.
Rivera, a second-year communication studies student, said students should make sure everything is locked before leaving their rooms to prevent similar incidents in the future.