This post was written by Hatchet reporter Meredith Matthews.
Police arrested two individuals for unrelated crimes on campus Feb. 26, according to documents obtained from the Metropolitan Police Department.
An individual who is unaffiliated with the University was arrested around 10 a.m. that day for attempting to steal four textbooks from the GW bookstore, a MPD incident report shows. The stolen books were worth $1,266.62, according to the report.
The crime was reported by Crystal Barnes, according to the documents. The documents do not indicate whether Barnes is affiliated with the University.
Barnes observed the suspect, who was not named in the documents, taking books from shelves and placing them in a black book bag and called UPD.
Bengyella Doh, a University Police Department officer, responded to the lobby of the Marvin Center and confronted an individual matching Barnes’ description who was about to exit the building. Doh “explained to him the reason he was being stopped,” and the suspect told the officer that he came to the bookstore to check the prices of textbooks, and then agreed to show Doh the contents of his book bag according to the documents.
“I notice that two of the books were the same and still wrapped in plastic with the price tag on it,” Doh wrote in the police report. Barnes, who initially reported the suspect, confirmed that the books were University property, the documents state.
The suspect was arrested for Theft II “because he placed the books in his book bag and walked past the cash register without making an attempt to pay for them,” the documents read.
MPD reported to UPD that a female student was also arrested Feb. 26 for having an open container of alcohol in public, UPD Detective Matthew Robinson said in a meeting last week. MPD officer Christopher Cunneen made the arrest at 11:05 p.m. in front of South Hall, according to the MPD arrest report.
MPD transported the student to the second district police station for processing, according to the report. The document did not name the student.
