By
Hillary Davis
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Delta Tau Delta's old house vandalized after group moves on campus, building will be
The recently vacated house of UA's Delta Tau Delta fraternity was severely vandalized - twice - immediately after the group moved out last weekend, making demolition of the building necessary.
Trash is strewn about the house's interior, jagged remains of windowpanes jut from the frames, and it is impossible to lock the facility, 1550 N. Vine Ave., so university risk management workers erected a security fence around the property on Friday, said Steve Holland, Director of UA Risk Management and Safety.
"The building right now looks like the Beirut Hilton," he said. "It's completely destroyed."
The fence was put up to prevent people, especially children, from entering the building, Holland said. Because the house is UA-owned, any injuries sustained by people trespassing on the property would be a university liability.
Holland said the house - an "attractive nuisance" - is especially dangerous because of the "guillotine blade-type" shards of glass sticking out of the frames of the patio doors.
After the fence was put up, somebody entered the house and placed a dead Christmas tree in the center of a room and set it on fire. The house did not catch fire, but a sprinkler head activated, flooding the entire first floor and basement.
Holland said some of the water will drain on its own, but risk management is not likely to pump out any water because the building is now only fit to be razed.
"I'm fairly certain it will be demolished because I don't know of anybody who has enough money to renovate it," he said.
Additionally, Holland said, several buildings in the neighborhood - about three blocks north of campus -were scheduled to be torn down because UA Facilities Management was going to get a new facility in the area.
Although a likely landswap between UA and Tucson Unified School District has set aside a parcel of land for facilities management on East 10th Street, the houses set for demolition will still likely be destroyed.
Despite the hefty damage done to the house, UAPD Sgt. Mike Smith said the case has been classified as arson instead of criminal mischief because of the burning tree.
Because the case is active, Smith could not comment on the investigation.
"The most I can say is it's arson and we're treating it as such," he said. "Arson is a serious crime."
DTD members officially moved into their new home at 1050 E. Cherry Ave. last weekend.
Chapter president Rob Scherillo said no members of the fraternity are involved and he does not know who is.
"We have no idea," he said. "It's located in a Tucson neighborhood and I would assume the damage was caused by the neighborhood. Students were not back from break then."
This is not the first time one of the fraternity's dwellings have been heavily damaged.
In summer 1998, DTD was set to move into its current house after the previous tenant, the now-defunct Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, was evicted after losing its charter.
However, an arson-related fire that July prevented Delta Tau Delta from moving into the house for more than two years.
In January 1999 UAPD dropped the investigation, and the Pima County Attorney's Office indicted Brian D. Ross and Jeffrey Kantor, both former ATO members, for thefts which occurred right before the blaze. Nobody was charged with arson.
Hillary Davis can be reached at Hillary.Davis@wildcat.arizona.edu
