by Al Greenwood
Senior Staff Writer
A large tempered-glass window at the University of Houston's Lyndall Finley Wortham Theatre shattered Tuesday night.
The window was still standing after 9 p.m., but thousands of cracks covered the pane. The cracks shot out from a focal point at the bottom of the window. No rocks or any other projectiles were seen by the window.
"It happened around 7:40, 7:45 (p.m.)," said Rebekah Fredholm, a sophomore theater major who was sitting several yards away when the window broke. "I just looked over there and didn't see anything."
For about 15 minutes, Fredholm said she heard a loud. "We thought it was really heavy rain hitting the roof."
Fredholm said she thinks the window broke because the building is settling. "We hear it settling all the time," she said.
UH Police Department Lt. Helia Durant said that it isn't unusual for buildings on the UH campus to experience foundation settling due to ground shift.
He added that UHPD had no evidence of criminal mischief relating to the window.
"Without any other evidence of any type of criminal act or vandalism, we are attributing the break to soil shift," Durant said.