Yearly report shows increase in motor vehicle thefts and hate crimes, with hit and runs omitted at El Camino

By Benjamin Hernandez • October 16, 2025

An El Camino College Police Department car sits parked outside the Arts Complex on Saturday, Sept. 27. ECC released its yearly campus crime report, as required by the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act, on Tuesday, Sept. 30. The campus saw a rise in motor vehicle thefts and hate crimes in 2024, when compared to the past two years. (Oriana de Quay | The Union)

The El Camino College Police Department released the 2025 Annual Security Report — covering crimes reported on and off campus — online and through ECC email.

Publication of the annual report is required of colleges and universities by Oct. 1, under the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act (Clery Act), providing crime statistics for the previous year.

The report, released Sept. 30, revealed motor vehicle thefts and hate crimes are on the rise.

Motor vehicle thefts were reported six times in 2022, four times in 2023, and nine times in 2024, according to the data reported.

“I think the main time where I don’t feel safe is when it’s pretty secluded … in terms of, sometimes I have night classes and I get out at like 10 [p.m.] and that’s the only time where I feel a little bit unsure,” biology major Sarah Harati said.

Harati added that she would notice people on campus who may or may not be students at ECC, as it is an “open campus,” and people wandering on campus, “you can’t really help that.”

While there were no reported hate crime cases in 2022 and 2023, two cases were reported in 2024.

According to the report, there were two on-campus hate crimes, classified as Simple Assault cases on the Annual Security Report, with one based on race and the other based on sexual orientation.

While no public record on the case based on sexual orientation was found, a campus safety advisory email on the case based on race was sent out by the college, according to The Union.

“I feel like El Camino is a campus that’s like pretty big and pretty open, so I feel like [ECC Police] need to be … always watching the area because it’s very open,” Gabriela Gomez, writing tutor at the ECC Reading and Writing Studio, said.

Gomez was a student at California State University, Dominguez Hills, between 2020 and 2024, before working at the Reading and Writing Studio, and said that , students were hired “part time where they’re … working with the police department and patrolling the campus … [and] if people had night classes or whatever they would have somebody that could walk with them to their car.”

While ECCPD cadets assist with patrolling on campus, Gomez said campus police should have a program to “make sure everybody understands what to do in those sorts of situations” and have the training to prevent it.

“I would say, as a community, we could still look out for each other,” Gomez said.

What’s not on the report

While the Annual Security Report lists thefts and assault, there is no mention of hit-and-run incidents.

As of the start of the fall semester, there have been seven hit-and-run incidents, all occurring in campus parking lots.

When a hit and run occurs, it is in reference to property damage and/or personal injury, and the suspected party at fault has fled the scene.

ECCPD Chief Matthew Vander Horck stated four out of the seven hit-and-run incidents since the start of the semester, weren’t actually hit and runs and were handled between both parties involved with information being exchanged and no police report filed.

“All they’re required by law is to exchange information, as it’s not an injury,” Vander Horck said.

Vander Horck added that the other three incidents involved parked cars, two in Lot H and one in Lot C, with no injury, and the driver fleeing the scene.

“Do we know that they even know that they hit the parked car? No, these are not major traffic damages,” Vander Horck said.

Since these hit-and-run incidents happen on campus, with no injuries and only property damage, different measures are taken for these cases.

“In these instances, we look for video, and … if we have video, we can see a license plate and if the resolution’s high enough, but more often than not, you can see and get a vehicle description,” Vander Horck said.

Vander Horck added that the Annual Security Report crime statistics, while called a crime statistics report, isn’t actually that.

“What do I mean by that? … If two people get into a fight on campus … that’s an aggravated assault … so we would count that, the FBI Unifying crime reports would count that as one assault … but the [Annual Security Report] would count that as two, because there’s two people involved,” Vander Horck said.

The Annual Security Report classifies the crimes that colleges and universities are required to report under standards specified by the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act.

“A parking lot hit and run without an injury is not going to be a Clery crime stat,” Vander Horck said. “Clery has its own categories [in the Annual Security Report]. We can’t add to it and we can’t take away from it.”

Editor’s note: