A note from the writer of Police Beat: Last year at around this time, I wrote the Police Beat: Homecoming Edition for 2017. It was my second ever Police Beat. It was okay, but now, 30 Police Beats later, I knew I could do better. So here are the same three cases from last year, written with a whole year of crime reporting as hindsight. Here’s to another year of Police Beat.

Losing Coach

The University of Arizona football team may have won their homecoming game on Nov. 8, 2014, but one UA student lost her coach purse after someone broke into her car during the game. 

A UAPD officer arrived at the scene of the crime and spoke with the student. She told the officer that she left her car in that parking lot and attended the Homecoming game. When she returned approximately 4 hours later, her purse was gone.

The right rear window of her vehicle was broken, which the thief presumably did in order to snatch the bag. The officer determined that the thief inflicted no other damage to the vehicle.

According to the student, her bag would not have been visible from the outside of the car. It had been located under her laptop. However, the laptop was not taken and was leaning on the back of the passenger seat when the officer examined the vehicle.

The student told the officer that the Coach purse itself was worth approximately $400.

The purse also reportedly contained about $100 in cash, a bottle of perfume worth about $100 and cosmetics worth about $150 altogether.

The officer noted that there were smudges around the car’s window. However, the officer could not lift any fingerprints from these inadequate smudges.

The officer’s search of the area did not turn up anything. The officer ultimately gave the student a case number.

Wedding Bell Varsity Blues

Something old, something new, something borrowed and something that vanished out of the blue.

A woman lost her wedding ring at the 2006 UA Homecoming Football game on Nov. 11, at some point between 1:15 p.m. and 1:45 p.m.

The woman stated in the report that she removed the ring in order to apply some suntan lotion. Later on, however, when she looked for the ring, she could not remember where she put it. 

She stated that, despite her attempts, a search of the area around her seat and of the restroom area did not succeed in finding the missing ring.

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According to the woman, the ring was worth $4,000. It was double-band platinum. The design of the ring included a large, round diamond in the middle, flanked by three smaller diamonds on both sides.

You’ll Float Too 

Don’t rain on a person’s parade and don’t destroy the float for that parade either. 

The members of the Delta Tau Delta Fraternity experienced a threat to the festivities when their parade float was partially damaged by members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity on November 8, 2002.

UAPD officers arrived at the Delta Tau Delta fraternity house, the scene of the apparent attack. At approximately 10:00 p.m. where they spoke with three members of Delta Tau Delta who witnessed the incident.

According to Delta Tau Delta members, the raid occurred at approximately 8:30 p.m.

Two of the Delta Tau Delta members were standing out front, keeping guard. Trouble arrived in the form of 20 Sigma Alpha Epsilon members.

According to the Delta Tau Delta members, the members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon emerged from the alleyway and attacked the float. 

They ripped pieces of tissue paper from the float. Some of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon members grabbed hold of the float’s side panel and dragged it across the street.

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According to the report, the float did not sustain any permanent damage.

During the raid, the two Delta Tau Delta members who were guarding the float were punched by invading SAE members, according to the Delta Tau Delta members. 

Upon noticing that their float was under attack, members of Delta Tau Delta rushed out of their frat house. They chased off the Sigma Alpha Epsilon members, who retreated into their own frat house.

One of the Delta Tau Delta members told officers that he recognized two of the offending SAE members from high school.

According to the report, the president of the Delta Tau Delta Fraternity told officers that he would be speaking with UA Greek Life about the incident.

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