As students arrived at Sacramento State’s Residence Halls on Feb. 24, they discovered that the locks to their rooms had been changed.

Every lock in each hall was switched after a set of master keys was taken from Draper Hall’s front desk that morning, said Jane Heaton, assistant director of Residential Life and Housing. Leonard Valdez of Student Affairs said an investigation is underway.

The University Police Department was called in to investigate the situation, but the investigation was suspended after the keys were recovered later on Feb. 24, said Lt. Dan Davis.

Although the keys were recovered, the changing of the locks continued for security reasons, Heaton said.

“Security was foremost,” Heaton said. “They were changed to make sure our people were safe.”

Freshman Danielle Crook, a resident, was notified about the key changes through her roommate.

Crook, a nursing major, was spending Friday night at her parents’ house, and when she arrived at her Jenkins Hall room to change on Saturday morning, she was “lucky” to have her roommate there.

“If she wasn’t here, I wouldn’t have gotten in,” said Crook, who explained that no one was at the front desk to distribute the new keys. “I was so frustrated.”

But Crook, like other residence hall members, remains concerned about her mailbox key, which is the same key she had for her old lock.

But Residence Hall officials assure that security precautions regarding mailbox keys have already been made.

Housing Facilities Manager Ron Hopkins said there are different levels of master keys. The one that was taken only had the ability to open the lock that accesses all of the mailboxes for loading purposes, but not each individual mailbox.

Hopkins said the “core” lock has been changed.

Nika Megino can be reached at [email protected]