Sara Seifert, director of Public Safety, said the Department of Public Safety received an anonymous tip from their silent witness line. The person said they knew the individual’s name who took the portraits and had seen them in their possession.
The student’s house is off campus, and DPS officers spoke with the accused student the next morning. The student was very cooperative, Seifert said and brought the officers the two portraits.
“Because of the cooperation and everything, we told them that we would be sending it to student code of conduct because they did obviously steal something from the University that wasn’t theirs, but we wouldn’t at this time be seeking criminal charges,” Seifert said.
There was no reason to believe anyone else was involved in stealing the portraits from the SUB, Seifert said.
Seifert said the person who stole the portraits had no malicious intent and he just made a bad decision. She said she hopes he learns from the experience and won’t do it again.
“Don’t let that decision hinder your future of getting a job or things like that. Some of that stuff tends to stick with you and the student’s lucky that he was cooperative,” Seifert said. “He was really nice and there’s no damage done to the portrait so we’re gonna be able to handle it through the school and not go criminal this time, but if we see him again and there’s another issue like this, you never know, so just think before you make those decisions.”
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