[Editor’s note: This corrects the title of Marco Beltran, entertainment editor.]
The Union Weekly reported that stacks of this week’s issue were stolen, then returned with explanatory notes.
The Union posted on its Facebook page Monday evening that stacks had been stolen from five racks on upper campus by the humanities buildings. The papers were returned about four hours later with notes attached to them, according to Editor-in-Chief Kevin O’Brien.
Marco Beltran, Union Weekly entertainment editor, posted a picture of himself with one of the notes on Facebook. It read, “Tuition fees pay for this misogyny, racism and irresponsibility? WTF! Demand your money back from ASI.”
“We went to each stand and gleefully tore off each note that they had written on the newspapers and threw them away,” O’Brien said. “We kept some to give to the police and some for prosperity and enjoyment.”
The Union Weekly staff has not yet decided whether it will take legal action. They have, however, contacted University Police.
The police told them that the removals were illegal and they would patrol the general facility to look for anybody tampering with newspapers.
“They are free newspapers, so if someone comes up and takes a whole stack of free newspapers, the courts have had a hard time figuring between legal and illegal. That’s where our trouble has been over the years,” Lieutenant Scot R. Willey said. “It’s not that we’re not going to pursue it, we handle every report the same. We go after what we can, but on that issue, it’s been hard … Because it’s a free newspaper it’s hard for us to uphold the legality of them taking them.”
Willey said they would have to find the thief and prove that he or she did it maliciously, which would mean that “the intent is to injure a business competitor, deprive others of the opportunity to read them or for any other reason,” as stated in code 490.7 of the California Penal Code Handbook.
O’ Brien said he thinks that the action is related to the current controversy surrounding the controversial article titled “Pow Wow Wow Yippee Yo Yippy Yay.” Although there are no suspects, O’ Brien said he believes that this was an organized crime.
“We actually believe that we were being watched and followed as we cleansed our newsstands,” he said. “There were multiple women walking in a direction, stopped, and then proceeded to either stare at us or stare into the general vicinity. We believe this was an organized effort by a group. We do not know which group specifically, but we believe this is a targeted illegal act of theft and vandalism by an apparent campus organization.”
O’Brien noted similar events have happened before. When The Union published their “How to Get Laid: A Girls’ Guide to Guys” feature last semester, the staff noticed some issues had been taken off the stacks and then put back later on in the week.
“We never cared to find out who it was really,” O’ Brien said. “I’ve [also] been told that years ago papers were taken over a political issue.”
“We were pretty proud of the fact that we were able to intercept them,” he continued. “I think in the end, whoever did this just wasn’t committed. You have to get out there later or earlier. It was just a little too lazy, that’s all.”
Jaime Varela, Associated Students Inc. Student Media Board Chair, said ASI will meet later this week to discuss a petition to remove O’Brien in response to the controversial article.
“We are not sitting on our hands,” Varela said. “We are trying to work as quickly as possible to resolve the issue.”
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