Vandals have struck the halls of the Rupp Communication Arts building.
During the night of March 29, one or multiple people entered the building, pulled a fire extinguisher from the wall and sprayed its contents through various sections of Rupp and parts of the Smith-Hermanson Music building.
Campus police reported that sections of the Rupp hallways, the Rupp lobby and certain parts of the Smith-Hermanson building’s hallways were covered in a thick layer of dust fired from the fire extinguisher.
Campus police also identified multiple different sets of footprints as well as what appeared to be bike or scooter tracks through the layers of dust that were sprayed.
Due to spring break, the Rupp building was closed to students. Because there was an obvious presence in the building, the act was considered a crime.
The act of spraying the fire extinguisher is similar to the act of spraying spray paint, which falls under the category of criminal mischief, Jeff Wallace, Taylor University chief of police, said.
Campus police do not believe the event to be of malicious intent but rather more of a prank.
“I don’t think they were trying to damage or destroy anything,” Wallace said. “It just created a lot of work for a lot of people.”
Wallace shared that while he loves the traditions around campus, he wants students to know that some seemingly harmless pranks can still require people to come in on their day off and work to clean up the mess.
Campus custodians had the mess cleaned up by the morning of March 30.
“It always is worth it to take a second and think about who else your actions might affect,” Wallace said. “Everything we do can have an impact and we need to pause and think about whether it will be positive or negative.”
