A man posing as a University student checked out two cameras from the School of Journalism and Communication on Friday and hasn’t returned them since.
The man, who student employee Brian Walker said looked to be about 22 or 23, walked into the Chambers Electronic Media Center at around 9 a.m. and checked out a Sony HVR ZIU camera, claiming he needed it for his Advanced Photojournalism class. The same man checked out another camera at 4:30 p.m. the same day. Together, the cameras are worth about $8,000.
Kevin May, an audio/visual technician at the CEMC, said the man “gave us a lot of false information,” including two false names: Alex White and Mike Trident.
May said the employees who checked the cameras out to the man described him as “kind of rude. He was on a cell phone the whole time.”
Walker, who was in the CEMC when the man came in, said the man was wearing a hat and glasses and “seemed kind of annoyed.”
May said the center’s checkout system has always been “relatively lax” because “it’s worked out in the past.” Students usually fill out a checkout form with student information including a student ID number and a phone number.
From now on, said May, “we’ll be double-checking contact information, calling their phone, and making sure we see student IDs.”