Stolen Delivery Car Arrest (Part 3) - Update

-Samantha Allen

For those of you following the story, Investigator Tom Dunn said today that the two men who stole a delivery car near the Emerson Hall last week will be charged with "Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle."

The unauthorized charge is a Class A misdemeanor, and significantly less impacting charge then the presumed "Grand Larceny" charge.

Apparently, drunk and disorderly behavior can be excused :). And I say good for these two individuals, presumably students. It would be quite a blow to a college transcript when applying for a job: Here is Mr. X, age twenty-something, recent Ithaca College graduate, who majored in some-very nice liberal arts title, enjoys chess and volleyball thoroughly, and who, oh yes!, also got drunk one night with a friend and took a civilian car while some unsuspecting soul was making a delivery. 

Good form.  

Let this be a lesson to all delivery drivers also - Ithaca College kids can be wild, lock those doors!

Trouble with Transportation on IC Campus - Part 1

By Samantha Allen

Saturday morning, at approximately 2:30 a.m., a man reported to Ithaca College’s Public Safety that while making a food delivery his vehicle was stolen. The vehicle was recovered minutes later in J-Lot of Towers parking.
Investigator Tom Dunn of Public Safety said that the “delivery guy,” of a local Ithaca business not released by the department, had parked his personally-owned vehicle on the main campus road to deliver at Emerson Hall. When he returned several minutes later, that car was missing and he reported the incident.
At 2:37, Officer Erik Merlin identified the missing car driving in the Towers parking lot and pulled it over. He found two male occupants inside.
“I believe alcohol was a contributing factor on both of their parts,” Dunn said.
The driver was arrested for driving while intoxicated and restricted from campus grounds. The restriction implies that the male occupant was not a student of Ithaca College. The passenger has been judicially referred for responsibility of his guest, as well as underage use of alcohol and criminal conduct. This implies that the driver is a student of the college.

At the request of the vehicle’s owner, both were criminally arrested and will be charged with grand larceny at the outset, and unauthorized use of a vehicle.
Dunn said that there was only one other incident of a stolen vehicle to occur on-campus in his recent memory, in which a vehicle was borrowed and not returned. He said a scenario like this is very unusual.
“Fortunately, it doesn’t happen very often considering how many delivery drivers we have," he said. “We want them to lock their cars. We want them to do precautionary things about that. I think the college is ripe for that.”

ON ANOTHER NOTE: 

Laura Durling, Assistant Director of Patrol and Security Services, said she recently has observed an unusual amount of reportedly stolen mountain bikes. Dunn said since the start of the school year, four have gone amiss.
“We haven’t seen that in the past,” Durling said. “ It seems to be a new trend.”

Perhaps, here has a been recent rise in stolen bicycles because of current gas prices?

STAY TUNED: Reporter Kaitlyn Rich will post soon a shocking perspective of this strange story, including documented footage of the arrest!