Police Have No Suspects:
13 years of the Arizona Daily Wildcat's Police Beat

Why are there so many sex offense cases on the third and fourth floors of the UA Main Library?

Masturbation and "flasher" cases in the UA Main Library can be traced back to the late 1960s (seriously). For two years in the 1970s, there was a serial flasher nicknamed "Tinkle-Bell" who prowled the aisles late at night. His M.O. was always the same. A co-ed would be looking for a book when she would hear a little bell ring from the other side of the aisle. She would look up and see a man exposing himself through a gap in the bookshelf. Then "Tinkle-Bell" would run away to tinkle another day. He was never caught.

I asked some experts why people feel the need to "let it all hang out" in the Main Library. Larry Morris, a Tucson clinical psychologist said university libraries are "favorite places" for people to expose themselves because there are many places to hide and usually a large number of young people. Ken Marsh, head of mental health at UA Student Health Services, said people expose themselves because of factors including insecurity, low self-esteem or fear of approaching people in sexual relationships. Joe at the bus stop said, "Some people are crazy, but there is something intensely erotic about the new computerized card catalog."

Why does Police Beat always refer to marijuana as a "green, leafy substance?"

That question is pretty easy. University of Arizona police officers refer to marijuana as a "green, leafy substance" because at the time of some arrests, the officers are not 100 percent sure that it is marijuana. What looks like a bag of marijuana could actually be a bag of oregano (even though that is highly unlikely, unless the bag is being carried by Mama Celeste).

Have there ever been any strange crimes that did not make Police Beat?

Yes, there have been quite a few. The Police Beat entries that run are the most serious crimes that were reported on any given day. Some days there are only a couple of crimes, on others there may be 20.

There are several bizarre crimes reported to UA police that would have made the book if they had appeared in Police Beat. The one entry that comes to mind is a story that was passed down to me from another Police Beat reporter. She said there was once a man who was arrested for indecent exposure after he took off all his clothes in front of a local fast food restaurant and threw himself at one of the restaurant's giant, glass pane window. Surprisingly enough, the man did not break the window. So he walked away from the window, turned around and tried to jump through it again. He kept on doing this until he was arrested.

Is everything in Police Beat true?

YES. It's the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If the Police Beat reporters could make up their own entries, they would be even stranger. For example, here's a fake Police Beat for an April Fool's issue that never happened.

The Wildcat Police Beat reporter was arrested and charged with assaulting a mime Friday afternoon on the UA Mall.

Jon Burstein, 20, was arrested at about 3:05 p.m. after he started beating a mime over the head with a textbook, police said.

This is Burstein's second arrest in two weeks. He was arrested last week for trapping a different mime in a glass box in the middle of UA Mall. For two days, people thought the mime was merely pretending to be trapped in a glass box, until the mime began to "scream like a banshee" and passed out.

Eyewitnesses to the latest episode of mime abuse told police that Burstein was walking along the Mall when the mime began to follow him and imitate his walk. Burstein turned around and told the mime to leave him alone. The mime proceeded to give Burstein "an international gesture of ill-will with his middle finger," police said.

Burstein attacked the mime with a textbook and then gave him a "titty-twister" until the mime's cries echoed across campus. Burstein was taken to the UA police station. He is believed to have assaulted several other "silent clowns" in the past month, but most of the mimes have been reluctant to talk.

Where did the name Police Beat come from?

Alas, some tales are best left untold.

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compiled by Jon Burstein
art by C. S. Harding
featuring "Police Beet: The Comic Strip" by Thomas Wentzel

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