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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 6, 1985)
Embellishments create an undercover look at Police Beat By JAY BLINDERMAN Staff Writer Next to At Ease and the Opinion Page, the Police Beat column of the Battalion is possibly the most read section of the newspaper. Although it's disheartening to realize that sofhe Aggies do, in fact, lie, cheat and steal, that realization remains. But Police Beat never tells you much. So I offer a look beyond Police Beat, a few writer's embellishments on actual Police Beat items. Each Police Beat column seems to have a theme. Criminals and wrongdoers must have a meeting once a week to decide on a theme or crime of the week. Past themes have included car theft, bicycle theft, jewelry theft and of course, the most serious crime of all, newspaper theft. Beatrice "Bee" Stingy, a student at A&M, reported that her newspaper was stolen by a man wearing dirty clothes. The man, carrying a large plastic bag, snatched the newspa per out of Stingy's hand and added it to his collection of articles in his Hefty sack, Stingy says. After the unexpected theft of her Battalion, Stingy says she pursued the man in the hope she could get her paper back. "I picked that paper up in Blocker and carried it all the way to the Commons so I was not about to give it up without a fight," Stingy said. Stingy tried to catch the man, who she says started to run after he swiped her paper. When Stingy got close she said she dove and tried to tackle the bag-wielding paper thief. ''It was risky trying to catch the newspaper thief, but it was worth it," she said. "But I didn't get my pa per back." In another reported incident, the bag man/paper thief was found ly ing unconscious in the mud by the bonfire sight. The University police awakened the man and then ar rested him for public intoxication. After questioning the man, the University police linked him to the newspaper theft two weeks earlier. During questioning, the man told police he was trying to save enough paper so the Aggie Bonfire would be built with and burned with "the com munist rags that polute the minds and the grounds of Texas A&M." The University police released the man after he was charged with pub lic intoxication. The man, however, is protesting the charge on the basis that if the police had not awakened him, he would have slept off his drunkenness, eventually wakening in a sober state. The newspaper theft story tops the list of serious crimes committed at A&M, but one occurrence comes in close second. An A&M dormitory resident, Janet Yell, reported that upon entering her room one enchanting evening, she found a "nice looking" man, whom she did not know, sitting on her bed. The man said to Yell, "Well, I've been waiting for you." Apparently that was the wrong line for the man to use because the astonished Yell ran out of the room. Yell was not the only person as tonished, for the nice looking man, who will not be identified by name, was equally astonished and hurt by the rejection. Not knowing how to handle reject ion, the nice looking man went to Northside to toss back a few cold ones. When he gathered enough self-pride, he decided to try his luck on another maiden of the dorms. By the time the nice looking man mustered up enough guts to harass another female student, it was past visiting hours for male students. En tering the dorm through the front door would be out of the question, the nice looking man said, after he was arrested by the University po lice. "I didn't want to break any Univer sity rules by entering the dorms after visiting hours," he said. So instead the nice looking man climbed a ledge at Legget Hall in an effort to enter another female stu dent's dorm room. He didn't want to face any further rejection. Not only did the nice looking man not want to face further rejection, he decided that a casual affair would not be enough to fulfill his desires. The man said his new proposition would include a marriage proposal. Apparently the nice looking man was having an off night. He never got to give his new proposal. What he did get, however, was arrested. When questioned by the Univer sity police, the man said God had given him a vision that the woman living in the dorm room would be his wife. But God's word was not enough and the nice looking man was charged with disorderly con duct and public intoxication. Sexual assualts and theft of news papers are one class of mischief at A&M but crimes of other sorts in clude harassing phone calls. In one week of Police Beat the lo cal perverts got together and de cided to make it obscene phone call week. In that week, thousands of obscene phone calls were probably reported to the University police, but only the top four made their way into the famous Police Beat column. -Newsprint is expensive and if you've heard one obscene phone' call, you've heard them all. Call number one was reported as an annoying call. A fine line exists between an annoying phone call and an obscene one. After careful investigation it was decided that defining the two is not worth the trouble. Some people have a higher tolerance of grossness than others. People with a high tol erance can refer to obscene calls as annoying. Others can stay with the traditional interpretation of obscene, which seems to be anything you don't approve of or don't like. Call number two, reported by a woman in Mosher Hall, was listed as obscene. Reportedly the man on the other end of the phone said "You are a B-I-T-C-H." After the name calling was over the man reportedly made animal noises. What fun. Call number three, reported by a . woman in Legett Hall, was also listed as obscene. During that phone call a man made sucking sounds and also used profanity. Call number four included a ques tion and answer session. This caller sought detailed information on the sexual habits of a couple living in married student housing. The couple might have replied, but they only had one phone in the apartment and couldn't decide who would get the honor of talking to the phone pervert, so they hung up. Before departing it's important that a final observation be made. Many things that have been re ported have happened at either the Commons or Legget Hall. In an effort to keep Police Beat an interesting column, the criminals of the Community should try to diver sify and include dll the dorms on campus as well as some of the more popular off-campus spots. □ Call Battalion Classified 845-2611