Textbook thief arrested
A university student was arrested for allegedly stealing textbooks in Krannert Memorial Library. “You have the right to remain silent…” Officer LeShawn Tyler read Eric Hergenroether his Miranda Warning/Rights after Tyler saw him take a Criminal Justice book owned by Cadet Timothy Harkness at 2:30 a.m., on Nov. 5, according the University of Indianapolis Police Incident report.
Since the middle of October, textbooks throughout the Krannert Memorial Library and Sease Wing were reported stolen by owners who left their study areas and returned to find their textbook gone. Tyler said the UIndy Police Department had seen the stolen textbooks as a reoccurrence and not random acts of theft.
“We’ve had a lot of problems with thefts, specifically books,” Tyler said. “It was becoming a common occurrence. Our main job is to make sure we stop those types of things, so we really wanted to catch this guy. It may sound small, a book, but at the same point in time, the last report I had taken was a $200 book and it can become very expensive.”
Other attempts had been made at catching the textbook thief, Tyler said.
“[Officers of] the University of Indianapolis Police Department…were advised of several thefts of academic textbooks that had occurred in Krannert Memorial Library and Sease Wing. Due to the consistent thefts from the Krannert Memorial Library and Sease Wing over several weeks, Tyler asked UIndy Police Cadet, Timothy J. Harkness, to position himself in the library with a textbook that had his initials ‘T.J.,’ on page 50,” the incident report states.
Tyler said that there were two officers placed in the building, one on the west side and Tyler on the east side, looking through a window. They set up a decoy, Cadet Harkness, and were able to put him inside the library.
“We were able to observe a male acting very suspicious; really nervous, swaying back and forth, getting up and [sitting] down. Eventually Harkness went to the restroom,” Tyler said.
He said that after Harkness went to the restroom, he observed the male walk over to the book, observe it and walk back into the computer lab where he had been. Then the male came out of the lab, took the book and tried to flee the building through the east exit.
“At that time we were able to apprehend him,” Tyler said.
According to the incident report, upon incident to arrest, Hergenroether was asked by the police, if there was anything they needed to know, and responded that he had heroine in his possession.
“Hergenroether was placed under arrest for theft; receiving stolen property, and possession of cocaine or narcotic drug,” the Incident Report states.
Some of these stolen books included “Human Functional Anatomy,” “Human Physiology” and the book used in the sting operation–“Criminal Justice Today,” incident reports state.
According to the incident report, Hergenroether had been selling back the stolen textbooks at the IUPUI bookstore for money. Some of these textbooks, such as the anatomy textbook, sell for about $200 each. And according to Textbook Alternative, a downtown bookstore that caters to IUPUI students, the human anatomy text could be resold for approximately $58. The incident report states that Hergenroether had been receiving approximately $30 for the textbooks, and that he had stolen about five textbooks on UIndy’s property.
Student Julie Bernhardt had also been one of the people to have a textbook stolen in the past month. She said that she had been studying on the third floor and decided to take a short study break on Oct. 27.
“I took my purse with me, but I had left my book and my bag sitting at one of the desks,” Bernhardt said. “[I] went over, got on the computer for five or 10 minutes, didn’t think anything of it and came back to the desk. My bag was still there but I looked on the table and my anatomy book was gone.”
Bernhardt said that she second guessed herself and walked over to the computer she had been using, thinking that she had taken it with her. She said she took a trip around the library, looking for it, and figured it had been stolen.
Bernhardt said she hadn’t noticed any suspicious activity in the library prior to the theft of the textbook.
“That’s what’s creepy about it. There must have been someone watching me,” Bernhardt said. “I hadn’t heard anything that had been going on. I went down to report it, and one of the ladies at the desk said I was probably the third person in the past couple of weeks that had reported a book being stolen.”
Bernhardt said she wished she would have known ahead of time so that it wouldn’t have happened. Fortunately, she didn’t have to buy a brand new anatomy book.
Bernhardt said that she informed her professor, Molly Hill, professor of biology, that it had been stolen, and Hill let Bernhardt use one of her books for the rest of the semester.
Now, the library has signs posted telling students not to leave any property unattended.
