Police Beat
Zach Thomas
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 18, 1996
Police Beat
Zach Thomas
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 18, 1996
A laboratory assistant in the Department of Biochemistry was struck by a Sun Tran bus Thursday as she crossed the street at the intersection of East University Boulevard and North Cherry Avenue.At 8:55 a.m., Aida M. Villa, 47, of the 1600 block of East Ninth Street, was struck by the bus while walking southbound in a crosswalk.
Officers arrived to find Villa lying beneath the bus, four feet in front of its left rear wheel.
She was transported to University Medical Center, where she remains in fair condition.
Witness reports indicate the bus rolled through a stop sign, struck Villa in the crosswalk, and came to a stop 15 to 20 feet later.
The bus driver said he made a complete stop at the stop sign. He said that as he turned eastbound, he saw Villa running in front of the bus but was unable to stop in time.
The Tucson Police Department will investigate the case further.
Fire alarms sounded at Navajo-Pinal-Sierra Residence Hall, 1557 E. Sixth St., March 10 after the contents of a closet in Room 345 caught fire.
University police and the Tucson Fire Department responded to the scene at 3:54 p.m., but sprinklers in the closet had already extinguished the flames.
Police reports indicate the power supply of a fish tank in the closet overheated because of clothes piled next to it. The heat eventually set the clothes ablaze.
The contents of the closet and room reportedly sustained water and fire damage. Water from the sprinklers also flowed down through the first and second floors, causing more damage. The total cost of the damage is unknown.
In a related case, a resident of the affected room returned to the scene at 8 p.m. Wednesday and found an 18-karat gold chain and $250 in cash missing.
The room's door was reportedly left unlocked after the fire.
A female University of Arizona employee called police Thursday afternoon to report her car stolen from Lot 2025 at the corner of East Speedway Boulevard and North Cherry Avenue.
The victim said she parked her 1990 Nissan pickup in the lot at 12:30 p.m. and it was gone when she returned at 1:30 p.m. Police found the car's radio lying nearby.
The victim reportedly saw no suspicious people in the area.
An anonymous caller told police Thursday that a resident of Coronado Residence Hall, 822 E. Fifth St., had gone room to room earlier in the week, checking for unlocked doors. The caller said the suspect had taken telephone components from one unlocked room. The caller did not know the resident's name, but did provide a room number.
Officers went to the room in Coronado Hall the caller had named and found a push-button telephone on the floor and an answering machine under one of the beds.
Police reports indicate the occupant of the room did not fit the caller's description of the suspect and he denied knowing the origin of the phone or answering machine.
When asked, the occupant said he did not know the whereabouts of his roommate. Police are investigating the incident.
University police arrested a Tucson man for third-degree criminal trespassing after officers found him sleeping in the Park Avenue Garage, 1140 N. Park Avenue.
Officers had warned Julio Espinales, 35, earlier in the week not to loiter in the garage.
Espinales was transported to Pima County Jail, where he was subsequently released by pre-trial services.
Police Beat is compiled from official University of Arizona Police Department reports.If you enjoy Police Beat, then check out "Police Have No Suspects" on sale now!
