UA Area
Aug. 2, 1:30 p.m.
A "dude" who'd been hanging out on the couches at the University of Arizona's Student Union was caught masturbating in a restroom there, according to a UA Police Department report.
Officers responded to an indecent-exposure call from the NRICH Urban Market restaurant at the Memorial Student Union, 1303 E. University, Blvd., where an employee said at about 11:30 a.m. that day, he'd witnessed someone in the men's bathroom apparently masturbating. He said when he entered the restroom, he heard moaning coming from inside a stall and could see a man's red, "off-brand" sneakers underneath the stall's door. The reportee said he thought the masturbator was the same man he'd noticed "hang(ing) out" on the couches near the restaurant daily for at least the past five days.
Officers located another man who'd been in the same restroom the previous day and also witnessed someone wearing red sneakers in one of the stalls emitting "mumbled grunts." He said "it sounded like some dude beating off."
This witness was in the bathroom long enough to see the man exit the stall and go wash his hands. He described the man as "tall, lanky, (and) older, with gray hair."
After walking around the Student Union concessions area without seeing anyone matching the subject's description, one officer went into the men's restroom himself—where lo and behold, he saw red sneakers under the door of a stall, though this time they weren't paired with disturbing noises.
Asked by the officer to exit the stall and be interviewed, the man agreed. His appearance correlated with that described by the second witness, and he was wearing the same shirt described by the NRICH restaurant employee—a grey T-shirt with the word "DUDE" on the back.
The man provided a bus pass as his ID and flatly denied ever having masturbated in any Student Union restroom, saying he must've been confused with someone else. He did admit to having recently spent a lot of time in the Student Union "in order to save money on his apartment air-conditioning bill."
As it turned out, the previous day the man had also had a run-in with Tucson Police Department officers, who'd issued him a warning not to smoke on campus. The reporting UAPD officer gave him an exclusionary order banning him from UA property for the next six months. ■
Hood Rat
Foothills Beat
July 6, 7:10 a.m.
A fancy Foothills neighborhood experienced a distasteful pool prank, a Pima County Sheriff's Department report stated.
A member of the homeowners' association in Foothills gated community called the cops after someone found the swimming pool apparently red with blood, with what looked like a dead animal floating in the water.
Upon closer investigation, the "blood" turned out to be red dye that had been injected into an oversized toy rat—the "dead animal."
Sheriff's deputies noted that anyone could've thrown the rat into the pool over the fence.
