by Julia Sundstrom

   Some people, like myself (fingers crossed), are very fortunate to have not experienced theft on campus, minus a pencil or two. Countless students across Colorado Mesa University have commonly experienced stories of missing bikes. Whether stolen or sold off, they don’t know for sure and probably never will. There are many of you out there with a beloved missing bike; just know that there are others out there who feel your pain. There are a large percentage of bikes being stolen, but there are other unnoticed theft stories that deserve recognition.

   In the criminal justice system, thefts around campus are considered especially heinous. In Grand Junction, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as “Mavericks;” these are their stories.

Murphy Smalley

“Night of my senior prom, I don’t have a date so I am going by myself and drove myself. We went to this restaurant in a little bit of a sketchy area. We parked our cars and walked to the restaurant. After dinner we were walking back to our cars and everyone got in. I was sitting in my car ready to turn it on when I was like, ‘why can I still hear the rain? I usually can’t hear the rain while in my car.’ I turned around and my whole back window is shattered out. Apparently I had left some bags I was getting ready with in my car. It was a bag full of the clothes I planned to wear afterwards. I didn’t know what I wanted to wear so I took all of my favorite clothes. It all got stolen. Then I sat there because I didn’t know what to do. I started crying and then called my mom. She was like, ‘you have to leave right now and go back to the restaurant.’ So I did and my mom picked me up.”

Austin Gonsalves

“I was at this camping trip and I had left my friends in my vehicle to go look for somebody down at the campfire. When I came back my truck was run into a ditch and the wheels were just spinning. I ran to the driver’s side and there was this drunk kid crawling out of it. I tossed him out and told him to get the hell out of here. I got in my truck, drove it out of the ditch and parked it.”

Jennica Ramones

“This was my freshmen year. I noticed I had money missing from my bank account so we traced it back and my roommate was having money problems too, but what had happened was the girl living across from us, I don’t know how, but she got into our room. She took my roommates social security card and all her bank information. Then she found my card, took money from my card and put it into my roommates account. She had made a double account. With my roommate she made two accounts. So she had a card where she could put in money. My roommate had two accounts and another account that she didn’t even know about, but that was the fake account that this person was using to get money.”

Karie Nguyen

“One time I was at the gym and a little boy came in to sell those world’s famous chocolates. I bought one and I put it in my gym locker. I went to my group exercise class and afterwards I went to check my gym locker because I wanted that chocolate, but someone stole it at the gym. Someone stole my dollar chocolate that was my favorite. That boy never came back.”