The EMU isn’t just home to lost people. It’s home to lost items, too.
Items like mugs, watches, books, keys and DVDs are stacked on shelves in Room 16B in the EMU’s pool and arcade hall, The Break. The room, home to the University’s lost and found storage, has even housed a violin and mini-scooter, said International Relations senior Mike Zunin, who has worked at The Break for four years.
Some of the items might never see original owners again.
Rooms like 16B can be found at the Department of Public Safety and the Eugene Police Department and are portals into the world of lost and found goods and stolen and recovered items.
University students crammed into the DPS front office to reserve a spot in line to try to claim lost items, mainly cell phones, Monday morning. This week marks one of the busiest recovery times all year, DPS Lt. Herb Horner said. Custodians find supplies in classrooms at night, and fans leave behind possessions at athletic games. Most lost and found items come from University classrooms, stadiums and arenas, Horner said. Some buildings such as the Knight Library have their own lost and found, but eventually all items go to DPS. Items are kept at DPS headquarters, while other items are sent to EPD or The Break.
“We have people find things off-campus that they believe belongs to a student and bring it here. We just get stuff from all over the place,” Horner said.
DPS hands recovered stolen items to Eugene police.
At EPD, Detective Bob Holland has seen a variety of items recovered in his 15 years at the department’s Property Crimes Unit, which investigates burglaries and thefts.
“I recovered a ring that was stolen from the son of an Air Force One cabin attendant who wore that ring when President (John F.) Kennedy was shot,” he said.
Common stolen items include musical instruments, knives, guns and jewelry.
“You name it, and people will try and sell it,” Holland said. “You name it, and people will try and steal it.”
Junior Ashley Smallman’s iPod mini was stolen after she found the top of her convertible torn to shreds in a parking garage near campus last year, she said. She figured she’d never see her iPod mini again.
But when victims like Smallman take the right steps, which include knowing a unique attribute about the item and filing a police report, police agencies have a greater chance of returning the item to the owner. Smallman got her MP3 player back thanks to Eugene police about six months ago, she said.
A unique identifier such as a serial number or an engraving such as Smallman had on her iPod helps detectives and DPS officers return items to the original owner. Knowing a serial number is important, especially on MP3 players, laptops and cell phones, Holland said.
“They are perfect targets for thieves,” Holland said. “They are smaller, so all of those things are easily transported and easily traded. On eBay and craigslist, you see that stuff on there by the thousands.”
Getting property back to the original owner is important to the department, Holland said.
“It’s a day-to-day job, and I think it’s an important piece of our job,” Holland said. “Whether prosecution results, at least the victim gets (his or her) property back.”
EPD works with local pawn shops and buy-and-sell stores to recover property. At such shops, employees enter item information via the Internet, and detectives compare the goods to a stolen property database.
“If someone comes in with an odd arrangement of things that don’t seem to go together, they’ll call the detectives and ask, ‘Do you have any cases where this collection was stolen?’” Eugene police spokeswoman Jenna LaBounty said.
When items can’t be returned to the original owner, Eugene police auction the items locally after 90 days. A handmade, mint-condition guitar worth $1,200 recovered during the summer will go to auction later this month because no one has claimed it.
The Break keeps items for about a year and then sells items at the end of each term, Zunin said.
DPS policy on lost and found property is unclear because DPS is recruiting an evidence room manager, Horner said. DPS has donated items to nonprofit groups like The Salvation Army.
Some 26 agencies across Oregon, including Corvallis police, sell items online at PropertyRoom.com, but DPS, EPD and the University don’t use the Web site.
Founder Tom Lane started the site to save agencies time and storage space, and to generate more revenue, he said. Police agencies hold the items, and drivers take the items to a warehouse near Seattle once or twice a month.
The site once sold a boat for $30,000 that was seized in a drug bust, Lane said. At any given time, there are about 10,000 items for sale on the Web site, but Lane expects the site to list about 30,000 items daily by the end of the year.
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