Man rages at litterer, flips the bird

University of Arizona Police Department officers responded to a call from the University of Arizona Medical Center’s security office at 4:41 p.m. Friday involving a verbal altercation between a man and a woman that had taken place about an hour earlier. The fight occurred when the two parked in front of the Cancer Center.

The man parked his car first and entered the building. The woman pulled up a few minutes later. She got out of her car, wiped her windshield with a towel and then threw it on the ground.

As the man exited the building, walking about 60 feet from the woman’s vehicle, he put his middle finger up at her. The man then started walking back toward the building, but stopped and approached the woman instead, shaking his fist at her. Although he didn’t touch the woman, he continued to shout at her with his fists clenched at his sides.

When UAPD arrived at the scene, the woman tried to leave, but a few security employees intercepted her and asked her to stay. During questioning, the man seemed very angry, refused to comply with the officer and security and at one point approached the passenger side of the woman’s vehicle to continue yelling at her.

According to the officer, the man then went back to his car and began revving the engine and switching the emergency brake on and off. The officer was concerned that the man would attempt to back into the officer and security employees who were standing directly behind the man’s vehicle. Eventually, the man said that he did not want to participate in any further judicial proceedings and asked to leave.

Later that day, the responding UAPD officer called the man, and the man admitted to shaking his fist at the woman but said it was because she had littered. He also claimed the woman had initiated the altercation by calling him names.

The officer explained that the man’s behavior would not be tolerated and that if he were to act in such an obscene manner again, he would be escorted off campus. The man said he understood the consequences.

The officer later learned that his supervisor had had similar interactions with the man prior to the littering incident.

Drink and run

A UAPD officer witnessed a young man running away from the side of a parked vehicle in lot 8109 on Cherry Avenue at around 8 p.m. Friday. The officer investigated the situation and examined the area next to the vehicle the man had come from. He found a black backpack next to a 30-pack of Bud Light. The cardboard box containing the beer was half full of cold beer cans, with the remaining beers in the backpack.

The owner of the vehicle walked up when the officer went to retrieve the backpack. According to the officer, the driver didn’t look like the subject who had run from the vehicle.

The backpack was placed into safekeeping and the beer was destroyed. The owner of the property has not been found.

Thief beats the heat

A UA employee reported a stolen air conditioning unit from the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at 10 a.m. Friday.

She was inspecting the building when she noticed the missing unit. The unit was worth $3,998 and had been purchased in September 2009.

The employee told the responding officer that the air conditioning unit was silver, and gave the serial number for the item. The building the unit was connected to had not been used for several months.

The UAPD officer filled out a victim’s rights form, which was then mailed to UA Risk Management.

Victim reports tool thief two days after the fact

UAPD officers responded to a report of vandalism and theft at a parking lot on the corner of Vine Avenue and East Drachman Street at 11:32 a.m. Monday.

The victim said that when he got off work at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, he noticed that his passenger window was down and that the lock cylinder was punched out of the passenger door. He said he didn’t call UAPD at the time because he didn’t notice anything missing.

Later, the victim realized that a small toolbox had been taken. After the UAPD officer examined the truck, he confirmed the markings described by the victim and found that the passenger window was stuck in the down position.

The man said he would like to be involved in any further criminal proceedings related to his case and asked to be informed if any suspects were found.

The officer searched the area around the victim’s vehicle but didn’t see any damage to the surrounding vehicles.