The Emory Wheel regularly meets with Emory Police Department (EPD) Records Manager Ed Shoemaker (87G, 90G) and Communications Director of Campus Safety Morieka Johnson (94C, 24L) and uses EPD’s public crime log to inform the Emory University community about recent crime on and around Emory’s campuses.
To report a crime, contact EPD at 404-727-6111 or police@emory.edu.
Illegal possession of a weapon at Murdy Hall
A student met with EPD in Oxford College’s Elizer Hall on Jan. 28 to discuss an incident with her roommate that occurred four months prior.
In September 2024, a student was lying on her bed listening to music in Murdy Hall when her roommate got up from her desk, reached for her keychain that had a Taser and pepper spray, and pointed the Taser at the student.
The student yelled for her roommate to stop. Her roommate started laughing, turned on the flashlight attached to the Taser, and made motions with her hands as if she were going to use the Taser on the student. The roommate did not use the Taser on the complainant, as her phone rang and she stepped away to answer the call.
The student who filed the complaint hid the Taser the following day, as she was afraid that her roommate might try to use the weapon on her.
After a few weeks, the complainant contacted the Office of Residential Education and Services to initiate a roommate swap.
The complainant told the roommate where the Taser was at the end of the semester. During winter break, the student told her parents about the incident. Her parents said to contact the residence life coordinator, who then strongly recommended that the complainant and her parents inform EPD of what had occurred.
The day after the student contacted EPD, the Office of Residential Education and Services confiscated the Taser and pepper spray.
Under Georgia law, possessing a Taser on school grounds is prohibited. Additionally, Emory policy prohibits students from possessing Tasers, making the roommate’s actions both a crime and a conduct issue, according to Shoemaker.
Entering an auto at Lowergate East Parking Deck
An Emory University Hospital cancer patient contacted EPD around 8 p.m. on Jan. 31 to report missing items from his car. The complainant had arrived on campus for treatment around 9:30 a.m. after staying at a hotel on Clifton Road.
After he finished his treatment, the complainant checked out of his hotel around 4:30 p.m. When he returned to the car, the door was slightly open but still locked with no apparent damage. He then drove back to his home in Rome, Ga. There, the complainant realized that the suitcase and two backpacks that had been in his vehicle when he left the hotel that morning were missing.
The patient reported that although his doors were locked, markings on his car indicated that someone might have used a locksmith tool to pick the lock and enter the vehicle.
Besides miscellaneous clothes and personal toiletries, the stolen backpack also contained the patient’s portable oxygen tank — a point of concern, according to Shoemaker.
“This is a little more than just a mere inconvenience on his part,” Shoemaker said.
EPD is currently investigating the situation.
Criminal trespass, property damage on Houston Mill Road
An Emory employee reported shortly after 4 p.m. on Feb. 3 that an unknown individual tampered with his car’s crash avoidance sensors.
The employee had parked his 2025 model SUV in the recently-closed Wells Fargo Bank parking lot at about 7:10 a.m. When he returned to his vehicle at about 4 p.m., he noticed that his car’s sensors were going off.
The employee pulled over and checked under the hood of his car, discovering that somebody had inserted a razor blade into one of the crash avoidance sensors on the front of the car.
The employee does not have any evidence that indicates a specific culprit damaged his vehicle. However, the employee insisted that the damage could not have been an accident or caused by debris picked up from the road due to the way the razor blade was wedged into the sensor, according to Shoemaker.
The University only recently bought the closed Wells Fargo property, so EPD is unsure if there are any cameras in the lot that captured the incident, Shoemaker noted.
EPD is currently investigating the situation.
