Third time’s the charm

A resident assistant in Colonia de la Paz Residence Hall called the University of Arizona Police Department because she smelled marijuana in the dorm’s hallway at 10:54 p.m. on Monday. Officers arrived at the dorm and the RA took them to the room where the scent seemed to be coming from. The officers knocked and were greeted by a male student who had been previously admitted to, and been cited for, marijuana possession twice — once at Highland Commons and once in the same dorm. This time he told the officer, “I don’t smoke marijuana.” The officer told the student that he had admitted to smoking it before. The student repeated that he did not smoke marijuana. Officers asked if they could conduct a search of his room and the student told them they could not.

As the officers continued to ask the student more questions, one of them noticed a grinder in the room. The officer asked the student what the item was. The student said he did not know. The officer picked the grinder up, opened it and saw there was marijuana inside. The officer asked if the marijuana and grinder were his since it was in his room, and the student replied, “I have nothing further to say.” The student was arrested for the possession of drug paraphernalia and the possession of marijuana, and was referred to the Dean of Students Office for a Code of Conduct violation.

Shake and take

UAPD officers noticed a male student shaking a vending machine in the Drama building on Monday afternoon. After asking him what he was doing, the officers decided they had probable cause to arrest the student for intention of theft. Officers asked for his driver’s license and searched his pockets. They found two bags of candy. Officers also noticed that he did not have any money. They asked him how he had enough money to buy the items, since he did not seem to have any money to spare. The student told them, “I borrowed $5 from my friend to buy these items and now I don’t have any left. I began shaking the vending machine only after I paid for the candy. I thought one of them was going to get stuck.”

Officers asked the student if he was lying, and told him that they wanted the real story. The student admitted that he was shaking the vending machines so that more candy would fall out of it. He then told the officers that he does not have any friends to lend him money, and that those were the only things that fell out of the machine. UAPD headquarters searched the student’s name, and found that he had two warrants out for his arrest. Officers put him in the backseat of their car and drove him to Pima County Jail. The student was arrested for theft and for his previous warrants. The officers threw away the candy.