Friends Who Got Exactly What They Deserved
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How did a school locker theft lead to a felony investigation and mass charges?
This story comes from the early 2000s, likely the 2003-2004 school year. Throughout the entire school year at my high school, there was this crime wave of people having things stolen out of their locked lockers. Not everyone, but enough that everyone knew someone that it happened to. The school's only defense about this was that it was our fault for sharing locker combinations with our friends. They also charged us every time we had to get the combination changed on a locker, like after a theft for instance, because it was assumed to be our fault. Well, I had my graphing calculator taken out of my locker. I also never gave out my combination to anyone, mostly because my friends were jackasses and we pulled shit on each other all the time.
So I was now out $150 for the calculator and another $150 to change the combination. This fee was so high because it required getting a locksmith to come out. This is 2003 money, so it's likely a bit more now. To anyone who's ever had to buy a TI-86 in 2003 or 2004, you remember how much those things cost. Well, my dad was drinking buddies with one of the county detectives. I'll call him Detective Buddy or Uncle Buddy. He went in to talk to the school about this string of thefts going on so he could get the security camera for the day my calculator went missing and got completely brushed off as it was a, quote, non-existent problem. And again, the gaslighting of, I must have given out my locker combination.
The principal told him that he would need a warrant to get the camera footage. Then when he got the warrant, the school fought the warrant in court, citing student privacy. Cue the professional revenge here. Detective Buddy shows up at our house with a laptop in a laptop bag. He's like, throw this in your locker. Tell everyone you know about your brand new shiny laptop. Okay, you got it, Uncle Buddy. Three days later, I show up at my locker between classes and the laptop is gone. The bag too. Nowhere to be seen. As is a 24 ounce bottle of coke and possibly some pens. I take my phone out and text him that the laptop is officially gone. Stand by for the shit show. Oh, and you reported the theft to the police, FYI.
That was his reply back to me. Okay, I'm a bit confused by that. But I go about the rest of my day and I don't hear anything back. The following morning, Detective Buddy come to the school with three uniformed police officers and pull a student named Dave out of class, as well as his mom, who works in the front office. Now, I'm pretty close with Dave. We grew up together. We even sat next to each other going back to fourth grade and have shared classes together in high school. The principal is pissed. I don't actually hear any of the cop's responses, but I can hear the principal through several walls. He's angry about the police marching onto campus and accusing not only a student, but someone of his staff of theft.
Well, turns out there was a tracker in that laptop bag, and Uncle Buddy got a warrant to search a particular house. The laptop had a value of over a thousand dollars, which made this a felony. The next afternoon, he set up a tent with a table just outside of the school grounds. He had a banner held up across it. It read, if you've had anything stolen from your locker, see me. By the next morning, Dave and his mom had made the paper. Apparently, Dave allegedly used his mom's login information to get onto the school network and get the locker combinations for basically every student there. Then he just opened random lockers looking for valuables to steal on the occasions that he didn't get info of a specific locker to steal from.
When Uncle Buddy set up the stand to get more people reporting thefts, he racked up an astounding number of charges for Dave. Each locker counted as a separate misdemeanor unless the stolen object was worth more than $1,000, in which case, that's another felony. In less than a week, Uncle Buddy opened and broke an investigation and they charged Dave and his mom with nine felonies along with 35 misdemeanor charges.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
How did a school locker theft lead to a felony investigation and mass charges?
0:17–10:17
2
What tactics did 'Detective Buddy' use to catch the locker thief after the school refused to cooperate?
10:17–16:15
3
How did the investigation against 'Dave' expand into dozens of charges and a class action lawsuit?
16:15–24:27
4
What were the legal outcomes and consequences for the school, principal, and victims after the locker thefts?
24:27–30:59