Shoplifting, Monday, June 28th, 2003

[monroe at mpm.edu]

At 12:17 p.m., Monday, June 28th, 2003, I responded to a call from Dispatch
(Officer Ralph Jones) to report to the Curiosity Shop.  A visitor had told
the Visitor Assistant at the Visitor Services desk, Jean Walczykowski, that
she had seen a man putting items into a bag in the shop, as if he was
shoplifting.

I stopped at the desk along the way to ask Jean if she had been given a
description, but she had only been told that he carried an Aldi's bag.  No
one visible on the Concourse or in adjacent areas matched that minimal
description.  Nor did anyone in the shop itself.

Shortly after I left the shop to look outside, I was approached by the woman
who apparently had reported the matter to Jean.  She said she had since seen
the man exit via the overflow eating area and head west on Wells Street.
She had apparently seen him put three or four stuffed animals in his grocery
bag and hurriedly leave.

She had apparently also mentioned the matter to Admissions Associate Tony
Busateri, who had been sitting outside for lunch on a bench along the
walkway to the Wells Street doors, but did not seem to understand that he
was not Security, had no way of contacting us immediately, and at any event
could not give chase to the man, who had already made his way up Wells
Street.

She did, however, provide some further description of him.  He is an African
American man, of indeterminate age and approximately 5" 9" tall, wearing a
gray or a green jacket.  She could not provide any further detail.