North Vine Avenue
Nov. 12, 7:32 a.m.
Someone tagged a work site in the heart of the University of Arizona's lauded upcoming "Student Success District" with depiction of a giant pink penis, said a UA Police Department report.
The vandalism was reported by a construction worker at the site, at the intersection of Fourth Street and Vine Avenue, where the UA is building infrastructure for its Student Success District project—described on its website as an "interconnected district that will empower generations of students" so that "outdoor patios and walkways will become more than connections between buildings; they will provide unique spaces for everything from collaboration to meditation."
The reportee said he'd left the site on a Sunday and arrived on Monday to find the main building's southeast corner adorned with a 3-foot-tall rendering of "a male's genitalia" in bright pink paint.
The heading of the police report: "GRAFFITI PINK OF MALE ANATOMY."
Law enforcement had no clues regarding the vandal's identity either as an avant garde artiste on a mission to dismantle patriarchy (e.g., by exhibiting male genitalia in a color conventionally associated with femininity) or, on the other hand, as a sophomoric gang-banger who'd used up all his other colors. At the time of the report, the pink-prick painter was still on the prowl.
<b>Will Work for Shoes (or Not)</b>
West Spear Shaft Drive, Marana
Oct. 29, 8:30 a.m.
A mysterious young man chose a very odd way of panhandling in a very odd location for an even odder (and oddly specific) cause, according to a Marana Police Department report.
Responding to a suspicious-activity call, an officer met with a homeowner who said she'd recently noticed a teenage male loitering in her yard. Last night, she said, a security camera recorded him lurking near her cars wearing a hoodie and red Chuck Taylors.
When the kid was still there the next morning, she said, her mother asked him what he was doing; he asked her for some cash, claiming he needed "to purchase a pair of shoes for his girlfriend."
The reportee said her mother responded "she would not just hand him the money" but did offer him good pay for doing a simple landscaping task in her backyard. He allegedly agreed but begged off at the time, saying he had to walk to school right then but he lived nearby and would return afterward.
When he didn't come back, the homeowner reported, she checked her other security camera and discovered someone had removed its battery, possibly more than two weeks earlier—meaning the Converse-clad kid could've been hanging around since then—but didn't know of anything on her property that had been stolen or disturbed (other than the camera battery).
The reporting officer gave her a victim's-rights pamphlet and told her to call if she ever saw the young man again, although inquiries suggested he didn't actually live in the area or attend its only high school.
