Police Beat

Lately, Sunday nights have been more fun than a barrel of monkeys. We have a friend who works for the Daily Universe, and he and his wife have been stopping by to visit on Sunday evenings. And of course, the regular Sunday night crowd still comes by each week, which we love! Anyway, the last few Sundays, we have talked about one of my all time favorite features in the paper: the Police Beat. I have some really funny memories of BYU-Blue collar criminals running loose on campus, including the water balloon tossers, the ne'er-do-well jaywalkers and my favorite, the campus clipper who found unsuspecting sleeping girls in the library and would chop off a big piece of their hair. My favorite though, was the manner these crimes were reported, with a touch of objectiveness mixed with a healthy dose of sarcasm.

Fast forward to today. Our very funny Daily Universe friend sent me something I just had to share: A collection of his favorite recent Police Beat reports. This is pretty much the first thing that made me laugh today, so I hope it does the same for you.

• Oct. 27: A male individual was reported yelling in the Eyring Science Center. When the officers arrived, they discovered he was actually singing along to music playing on his iPod.
• Nov. 5: Four men threw a partial package of hot dogs at an 18-year-old female student, as they drove through the parking lot in Heritage Halls, then sped off toward 900 East. The hot dogs did not hit her. She was able to get a partial license plate number, and took a hot dog to the police station as evidence.
• Oct. 5: A female occupant of Wyview Park was asleep in her apartment when someone threw a cat through her partially open window. A man outside the window was communicating with her, trying to talk her into letting him come into the apartment, but she refused. The police think he threw the cat through the window so she would let him in. The suspect has not been identified.
• Oct. 3: A male student received a text message on his cell phone indicating that he would die within 9 hours and 16 minutes.
• Sept. 18: A deer was hit by a vehicle on Ninth East on the south end of Kimball Hall. Police responded and reported that the deer passed away. BYU grounds removed the deer.
• Feb. 2: A student reported a suspicious individual with long gray hair and a beard inside a restricted lab in the Clyde building. Upon arrival, the officer found a mannequin in the reported location.

And here are a few more I found that I liked:

• Sept. 25: The police received a call reporting a male subject sawing the lock off a chained bicycle in the west bike racks by the Richards Building. The bicycle did indeed belong to the man. His lock was reportedly defective and so he had to cut it off.
• Sept. 25: A student called the police to report a suspicious person in Heritage Halls at 3:30 p.m. The suspicious person turned out to be a grounds worker.
• Sept. 27: A student and her roommate were walking by Miller Field when they noticed a possibly unclothed man in the shadows. They reported that he was an estimated 300 pounds but were unable to estimate his age. He told them “hello.”
• Sept. 24: Police responded to a call at 4:00 p.m. to check on two male individuals who were spitting off the balcony of the Joseph F. Smith Building. One male was reportedly in his 20s and the other in his teens. When officers arrived, the suspects fled.
• Sept. 26: Three males, a BYU student, a UVU student, and a non-student, were caught filming themselves attempting extreme stunts on the stairs by the Tanner Building. The police told them to stop because it destroys property.
• Oct. 8: A concerned observer reported a suspicious male in the HBLL quad at 5:45 p.m. When police questioned him, he said he was Free Running, a game where people run fast toward the corners of buildings or other certain structures and attempt to climb them without assistance and flip or jump. The suspect was a 26-year-old male visitor who said he'd learned of the game through YouTube. Police directed him to go Free Run somewhere else.

And let's end with this one:

• Sept. 30: Female students in Helaman Halls complained about a man in a gorilla suit attempting to scare students near the Cannon Center. When police arrived, there was no sign of either the complainant or the gorilla. Students complained again early Oct. 3 about a man in a gorilla mask. The gorilla has not yet been identified.