To Catch a Thief

New thing for April: crime stopping! Here's the story. I ran into a former student in the hallway on Thursday, right near some study desks in the building where I teach. We chatted for a few minutes, and then I walked back down the hall. I glanced at the desk area as I passed, and noticed a guy packing up his stuff. He looked at me kind of intently, but I didn't think anything of it. I got to the top of the hallway and realized I needed to go back for something, and when I turned, the guy I had made eye contact with was walking toward me carrying some notebooks with an open laptop on top. He looked at me again and nodded his head in greeting, and then he turned towards the stairs. Right then, my former student--the one I had been chatting with--came running down the hall. "Did you see a guy with a laptop? he asked. I told him he went down the stairs, and then Steven, the student, ran and called back, "he just stole my computer."

This is where my inner super sleuth was born. Realizing that I'd never actually seen the criminal go down the stairs, I decided to scour the nearby classrooms for him. Suddenly, there he was, coming out of the restroom with the laptop sandwiched between the notebooks he was carrying. Without thinking about it for even a second, I walked straight up to him, grabbed the edge of the laptop, and, as I pulled it from him, said, "This isn't yours! You stole this!" I think he was so stunned that some thoroughly middle aged professor had caught him that he couldn't form words or even act. By that time, I had my hand on his arm. "We're going to security," I said.

It was right around then that I realized that this was a ridiculous situation. I couldn't actually drag him three floors down to the public safety office alone. I saw my colleagues, Debbie and Angel, chatting down the hall. I walked the kid over to them and told them I needed their help. Debbie stepped right up and took his other arm. At some point, we must have let go, because the next thing I knew, he was running down the hall toward a back staircase--and then Angel and a bystander student were running after him. By the time I found Steven and gave him his laptop, Angel and the student had chased the thief out through the soccer field to the woods where they lost him. But here's the best part. He dropped the notebooks he was carrying, and inside we found his name, his photo, and several documents summoning him to court for some other crime. The police arrived--along with a canine unit--and we turned everything over to them. Steven realized that the thief had his iPhone, too, so that was a shame. The police talked to him for awhile, and then to me, I had to write a statement and answer some questions, and then it was over. I found out later that the thief was arrested on felony theft charges.

I think my sleuthing days are over now, but I have to say, this was a real adrenalin-pumping new thing!

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