A door was vandalized with graffiti and had glue on its lock on separate days in a series of vandalisms targeting the El Camino College Federation of Teachers office and its members, prompting police to investigate.
Police were called to the office, located in Room 201 of the Communications Building, on July 1, after Federation members discovered graffiti on their door.
“Somebody had wrote on the Federation office door, ‘toxic whiners’ with a marker,” El Camino Police Chief Michael Trevis said. “It was cleaned off. So far, we’re still trying, but we’ve been unable to identify the person who did that.”
The next incident was discovered morning of Sept. 6, when a faculty member trying to get into the office found that someone had glued the door’s lock shut.
“Somebody went to the same office door and, just recently, put some kind of adhesive or glue into the door lock,” Trevis said. “We are still actively investigating that matter.”
The door was found glued hours before the Federation was set to protest at the Board of Trustees meeting. A campus locksmith had to replace the lock at a cost between $600 to $1,000, Trevis said.
Another incident discovered by Federation President Kelsey Iino, which police are not investigating, involved someone gluing anti-Federation posters on the glass displays of the office some time before the locks were glued, Iino said.
“I did notice there was like a film [of residue] on our display case and I thought it was some kind of dirt so I went out to clean it,” Iino said. “But as it turns out that adhesive had posters glued to it.”
Photos provided to The Union by student workers at the Social Justice Center, also in the Communications Building, showed papers glued to the display case with messages like “We are at an impasse b/c our chief negotiator is an arrogant, whiney troll,” and “Ali is a rude radical idiot.”
Also posted was a printed image of a crying baby. Other groups in the building removed the posters before Iino arrived at the office, she said.
A report was taken on this specific incident but police are not investigating it as a crime.
“There are no threats in those posters,” Trevis said. “We do know there are administrative board policies on posting things and we’re looking at that, but not in any criminal nature.”
The incidents left Iino worried about a lack of surveillance in the area, as no cameras directly captured the crimes when they happened.
“We inquired about campus surveillance because we were under the impression the college is under campus surveillance for safety purposes,” Iino said. “And we were notified that there was no direct video footage of our hallway.”
There was some back-and-forth between the Federation and campus police on getting more surveillance in the area, Iino said. Since then, a mobile security camera tower has been parked in front of the office.
Iino has been taking police escorts on and off campus, saying she fears for her safety as negotiations between the college and the Federation continue.
“You know, people today are somewhat unhinged. I definitely believe this person is not being rational,” Iino said. “We’ve been in negotiations for 16 months, without a contract for nine months. People are very frustrated with that process, and they want to blame people.”
The college has responded by condemning the vandalisms, Director of Public Information and Government Relations Kerri Webb said.
“The district takes any acts of vandalism seriously,” Webb said. “It is currently in the hands of the El Camino [College] Police Department.”
