Fifteen hundred issues of The Daily Helmsman were stolen from a courier's vehicle early Wednesday morning.
The newspapers were stolen at approximately 6:20 a.m. during delivery, said a Helmsman courier who wished to remain anonymous.The courier entered the Meeman Journalism Building to deliver copies and returned to see a man described as being in his early twenties and slightly over six feet tall. He said the man was tossing bundles of newspapers into the bed of a small, late-model red pickup truck.
The courier identified one Caucasian woman sitting in the bed of the truck and another person sitting in the passenger area.
One of the truck's passengers told the man that the courier was returning and they fled north on Innovation Drive. The truck was already facing Patterson Street and the suspects apparently gained entrance through the controlled-access gate because the barriers were raised for custodians who arrived early for work.
The name of the truck owner could not be identified because no hangtag was swiped to raise the barriers, thus no information about the entrance was recorded.
Bob Willis, advertising manager for The Daily Helmsman, filed a police report at approximately noon and said charges will be filed if the suspect is caught.
"We see (the thefts) not just as an act of vandalism but also as a First Amendment violation," Willis said. "This was a senseless act of vandalism that won't go unpunished."
Sgt. John Cowles, an investigator for the University of Memphis Police Services, said the thefts might be a prank staged by a fraternity and said students and faculty could arrive to campus today with newspapers scattered about.
Before Wednesday's thefts, Mark Goodman, an attorney with the Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C., said the stealing of free newspapers is a serious crime, even if it doesn't appear that way."People seem to think it's not illegal to steal newspapers that are distributed free, but that argument doesn't hold true," said Goodman. "Straws and napkins are free at McDonald's, but you can't go in and empty all the straws and napkins in to your purse or into the trash can."
The theft of university newspapers is not an uncommon crime.
Fraternity members at Indiana State University stole over 100 copies of the campus newspaper this month. The students said they were offended by the newspaper's use of their Greek letters in an article.On Nov. 15, members of a New Jersey student group called the Progressive Activists admitted to the thefts of 5,000 copies of Rutgers University's alternative weekly, The Medium.
A law signed by Colorado's governor now makes stealing free-distribution newspapers a misdemeanor offense, punishable by up to a $5,000 fine.
Delivery of the Helmsman's 9,500 daily copies to 50 on-campus distribution sites usually takes no more than two and a half hours. Copies of the newspaper have been stolen before with strong, though unproven, evidence suggesting contempt for content in the articles.
