SALT LAKE CITY — The Eccles Student Life Center on the University of Utah campus was built to provide a place for students to workout, recreate, and have a good time. But that changed Wednesday when hidden cameras were discovered underneath all-gender bathrooms in the building.
Now, students who come to workout are more apprehensive.
"This is a place where students should be able to come, boys and girls, and be able to get a good workout in without having to worry about people watching them in hidden cameras," Ethan Cherny said.
Students like Cherny and others say hearing about the hidden cameras in the bathrooms makes them feel taken advantage of.
"First of all, I use those bathrooms a lot. I come here a lot and I was just kind of disgusted and I didn't feel safe anymore using those bathrooms," said Emily Wonacott.
University police say the alleged suspect arrested for planting the cameras, Fredrick Weitz III, was able to gain access to the Student Life Center by stealing an acquaintance's university ID number. He faces charges of voyeurism, burglary, and identity fraud.
Many students say they are upset about how easy it was for Weitz to gain access to campus facilities.
"We're scanning our UIDS every time we go in, and it has a picture of us, but obviously that's not enough," Cherny said.
"The fact that a non-student or faculty or administrator was able to get into our facilities was pretty frightening and kind of made me feel unsafe," added Sam Gaskill.
University police say they have identified two or three victims, but there could be more. Right now, they say their man focus is creating a tight case and supporting victims.
"We are trying to identify victims from the cameras, from the evidence we've obtained, we want to notify these victims, and get them the right resources they may need to move forward," said University of Utah Police Capt. Brian Lohkre.
Lohkre also said firmly that this type of predatory behavior against university students will not be tolerated and the first step is a clean sweep of campus.
"The university as a whole, we have a concerted effort to searching the university, our facilities folks, our police officers making sure everything is where it should be, and no other devices are where they should be," Lohkre said.
While university police are doing their best to make sure this doesn't happen again, they are also asking students for assistance.
"We are asking students if they see something, say something. and call us," Lohkre said.
University students like Cherny hope the campus police can do something about this going forward.
"I think that's really scary and I hope the U can do something about that, so it never happens again."
