Minneapolis CBS affiliate WCCO-TV excluded a botched hidden-camera investigation at Augsburg College from its television report on dorm security on Oct. 30. The report featured Macalester, St. Thomas University, the University of Minnesota and University of Wisconsin-River Falls in the television report, which included footage and interviews from a three-month undercover investigation. Concordia was also in the investigation, but excluded from the television report.

WCCO-TV’s special projects “I-Team,” led by news reporter David Schechter, began the investigation after an unknown assailant entered Wallace Hall in April and sexually assaulted a prospective first-year student.

“It’s a fact; students let strangers into the dorms all the time,” David Schechter said in the opening lines of the broadcast. “Once a stranger’s inside, everyone’s vulnerable to theft, assault, and to rape.”

In 23 of 24 attempts across the four campuses in the television report, the I-Team was able to gain access to locked dorms.

At Augsburg, WCCO-TV camera person Tom Aviles followed a student in a wheelchair into a campus dormitory and was asked by the student to identify himself, according to Augsburg Director of College Relations Dan Jorgensen. When Aviles ignored the request, the student went to his dorm room and phoned college security.

On his second attempt to enter the Augsburg dorms, Aviles was approached by campus security while retrieving supplies from his van. According to Jorgensen, the security guards asked Aviles what WCCO was doing at Augsburg and persisted until he admitted he was there for a special report.

Aviles had been stopped by campus security on two previous attempts to gain access to Augsburg dorms, Jorgensen said. WCCO-TV did not disclose the Augsburg research in the television report.

According to Schechter, the story was about accountability. “Are people doing what they say they’re doing?” he asked.

The plan was to send Aviles to two dorms on the four campuses included in the televised report. Aviles was to try to enter each dorm three times to test the security of the dorms against entry by an unknown intruder, Schechter said.

The I-Team added Augsburg College and Concordia College to the list of four schools six weeks into the investigation, after finding out that there had been rapes on each of the campuses. In the aired report, Schechter mentioned the two incidents of rape, but nothing more was said about either Augsburg or Concordia.

Schechter insists that the “I-Team” decision to exclude Augsburg from the report was made on the basis of fairness to the other schools. He claims that Macalester Dean of Students Laurie Hamre tipped off Augsburg security and that they were on the watch for Aviles.

“How did they know he was from WCCO?” Schechter said. “They had been notified by Macalester.”

Schechter interviewed Hamre on Oct. 9, during which he disclosed to her the results of the Macalester investigation. According to Hamre, the investigation undercover footage was revealed halfway through the interview. Later that same day, Hamre went to a previously scheduled meeting with administrators from local colleges, including Augsburg.

Hamre said that she assumed that WCCO-TV had finished its investigation of Augsburg dorms. “I did not tell them much, just [to] ‘be alert, be careful who you put in front of the camera,’” Hamre said.

The information the Augsburg security guards had on Aviles, specifically that he was working for WCCO, came from his first failed attempt to get into an Augsburg dorm, Jorgensen said. He said that Augsburg’s security guards took down the license number from the van Aviles was using and traced the plates to WCCO-TV.

After the I-Team completed the investigation at Augsburg, Schechter contacted Augsburg officials and scheduled a post-investigation interview with Jorgensen.

“The greater good is making colleges safer,” Schechter said. Both Hamre and Jorgensen admit that the report did reveal weaknesses in security.

“I’m a believer in doing undercover reports,” Jorgensen said. “But they should include what they have uncovered.”

Macalester Director of College Relations Doug Stone, who worked for WCCO-TV from 1981 to 1991, said that TV news directors generally want damning undercover reports.

“Their primary motivation is to grab viewers,” he said. “This can lead to a distorted picture of the news.”

Although he refused to comment on future tests of dorm security, at the end of the televised broadcast, Schechter assured WCCO-TV News Anchor Don Shelby that the I-Team would follow up on its report on college security.

Since the sexual assault at Macalester in April, new security measures have been implemented on campus. A blue-light phone system is being tested outside the Campus Center to make phones easier to find in dangerous situations and security cameras have been installed. Pre-existing programs such as the Safe Walk Service have also been promoted more heavily this semester than previous years.