Muns, Raleigh. "Crime and punishment "
The Current (University of Missouri-St. Louis) January 23, 2006 (vol. 38, no. 1172), p. 5
On Saturday
morning, August 26th, 2005, I arrived at the Thomas Jefferson Library
for a regularly scheduled weekend shift only to find the entrance swarming
with campus police. It turns out that a nefarious (and not too bright
as you shall read) thief had gotten into the Library somehow in order
to knock off our safe and retire in great wealth. Not exactly "The
Italian Job" as I question the sanity of anyone who thinks knocking
off a library safe would be very lucrative. Apparently our cretinous
crook spent most of the night prying, gouging, twisting, penetrating,
and peeling the safe's metal facade to his reward of "less than
$250" as reported in The Current at the time. We take
our crime seriously in Library Land, and I can vouch that the UMSL libraries
are the safest I've ever encountered. We employ professional security
who are on hand during all open library hours. Don't take my compliments
about safety as an invitation to leave your purses, backpacks, or laptop
computers laying around unattended, as there is no need to invite the
occasional opportunist to take your goods. But UMSL is regularly documented
as one of the most crime free campuses in the state. The honesty of
our student body, or any group of people, isn't universal, but UMSL's
is pretty high in my opinion. I can recall two times since I've been
with the libraries where someone found money (a $5 bill once, and a
$20 on another occasion) and turned them in at the Reference Desk as
lost and found items. It was at this moment that I realized the Midwest
was a totally different creature than my previous Left Coast habitat
of Los Angeles. At the time I left the UCLA Libraries they were being
harassed by "The Mad Defecator" and stolen backpacks were
a daily occurence (note: in defense, UCLA's library system was MUCH
larger than UMSL's, so it wasn't as if theft was happening before one's
eyes, minute to minute). One of my
favorite local reads, in fact, are the crime reports in The Current.
I recall a few years ago a rash of thefts of Plymouth Neons in the parking
structures (Plymouth Neons?); then there was the faculty member reporting
a large can of peanuts lifted from her office which I found particularly
intriguing; my favorite bit of UMSL larceny might have been last year's
great frozen chicken heist at the Millenium Student Center (it was an
inside job). Stealing frozen chicken is a classic. I pictured the crooks
in trench coats whispering "Hey, buddy. Ya wanna buy some hot cold
chicken?" Followed by a display of drumsticks flashed from inside
their floor length coat. Oh. When
these people are caught? They DO go to jail, so don't get any ideas.
And turn your books in on time while
you're at it. |
Email Address: muns@umsl.edu
WWW Home Page URL:http://www.umsl.edu/~muns