Hard drive stolen from OCC library

Deepa Bharath

A bizarre incident that could only be described as a “commercial

burglary” intrigued Orange Coast College officials on Friday.

Costa Mesa police got called to OCC at about 4:05 p.m. Friday by a

computer technician who reported that he was missing a computer hard

drive bearing valuable information such as telephone registrations

and school records.

The technician had tried to check his work e-mail from home on

Friday morning, but got a message that the system was down, according

to the police report.

The computer controlling the entire Coast Community College

District’s network, which includes OCC, Golden West and Coastline,

was housed in OCC’s old library and no one even knew about it, the

technician told police.

When they went to the room where the computer was, the hard drive

and power strip connected to the computer were missing, the report

said. Police estimated that the incident probably occurred some time

between Thursday night and Friday morning.

The technician told police that the hard drive itself was not

worth that much, but that the software running the computer was worth

about $20,000.

As the technician and the investigating officer walked around the

building they found the missing items in the cooling tower portion of

the building, sitting on top of a compressor out in the open, the

report said.

The officer had written that the technician was greatly relieved

to get the hard drive back, but remarked that the incident was “very

peculiar.”

The officer also observed that there was no forced entry into the

building, which was strange because the only parties who had access

to the building were the technician who reported the incident and

Sprint Phone Systems.

The old library building is empty, locked and fenced off, OCC

spokesman Jim Carnett said.

“We’re getting ready to renovate that building in spring,” he

said. “No one even goes in there.”

Carnett said he could not comment on the incident on Monday

because he did not have access to the incident report.

“Even I didn’t know that the central computer system was located

in that building,” he said.

Costa Mesa Police Lt. Dale Birney said Monday that he did not have

any more information about the incident.

He said he did not know if the case is still under investigation.

“The officer seemed to have spent about 50 minutes there on

campus,” Birney said. “Although it’s not unusual to take that much

time on cases, it is unusual for this type of a call in OCC.”

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at [email protected].