<p>Post #20 seems to be a duplicate of comments posted in # 18.</p>
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I find this very difficult to believe.</p>
<p>I, too, am sorry that this happened. As others have said, the theft should be reported to the police so that it is on record. He now has to be extremely careful about any valuables in that building as he now knows that there is an inside thief there and is locker is not safe at all. That the he has already expressed his opinion as to who he thinks committed the theft to whoever is in charge on site, and has been told that this is a dead end there for whatever reasons, means exactly that, and it does not behoove him to dwell on it or bring it up again. The theft should be on record which it is with the campus police and when he reports it to the local PD, it wll also be so there. That can be useful for others who may become future victims.</p>
<p>I also would recommend that your son find another job or project. Not immediately, but to keep his eyes and ears open for other opportunities. It is dangerous to be sharing facilities with a thief, especially one that would go that far in stealing something. Yeah, I know, that it’s like being a little bit pregnant, but I do believe that there is a big difference between the type of person who would open up a locked locer and steal the contents and one who would pick up money sitting on a desk top in plain sight. I don’t feel good that accusations and suspicions are levied, as none of us know what the relationship among everyone there is. Your son is the outlier for now. Other things can happen and things can be planted as well as stolen. Your son is not in a good safe place right now.</p>
<p>As to how the head of the facility reacted, it is typical. MOst people avoid this sort of confrontation and your son is the new guy here. If there had been a rash of thefts or disappearances and was already on his radar, he might have been more proactive, but when a new kid says he locked everything up securely and it was stolen, and all signs point to the long term employee,it is just the way it usually goes that those who know said employee over time is going to be loathe to levy accusation. Your kid could be lying as far as he is concerned or mistaken about the locker. There have been cases where people swear to a sequence of events and it turns out not so, To dump on a janitorial employee over a theft is something that noone wants to do. But it could well be that regardless of what the boss said to your son, he may have privately questioned and warned the employee, which is another thing that might not be so safe for your son, though a safeguard to others in the facility since the person is now put on notice.</p>
<p>One thing puzzles me. If the cleaning lady was “outside the locked back door”, how did your son know she was there?</p>
<p>Again, we are all sorry when anyone has something stolen from them, and understand that you are upset, but its probably a bit of an overstatement to claim that Rice has an “extensive amount of insider theft”.</p>
<p>Honestly, we really dont know how to push the authority to look into the custodian lady. It seems like nobody want to have much to do with this issue. It is very frustrating. I do agree that the stolen items were no longer in her closet and the chance of getting them back is slim. I believe she took the laptop, calculator and cash and then dumped my sons school bag and notebooks in the dumpster, probably inside a trash bag because she has access to trash bags and wouldnt attract attention carrying it around the campus as she was wearing custodian uniform. My son had asked the campus police officer to circulate the serial number of his laptop to pawn shops, however, he never got any reply from her. We did enter the information of stolen laptop into the stolen property database and report the theft to the manufacturer of the laptop. Apart from that, we dont know what else to do.</p>
<p>Again, if she was OUTSIDE a locked door, how did your son know she was there?
The Houston police will check the pawnshops. Doubt the campus police will…</p>
<p>OP, I don’t want to offend you, but I have to say that there are a few elements of your posts that have the hallmarks of a “concern ■■■■■.” (You even have “concern” in your screen name.) A concern ■■■■■ is somebody who posts “concerns” about something that they really are trying to drag down. Thus, if you were a ■■■■■ of this kind, the purpose of your posts would be to make Rice look bad. The biggest problem I have with this scenario is the idea that the authorities wouldn’t take a sharp look at the custodian; I feel quite certain that they would. It could be that your son has not conveyed all the details to you accurately, of course.</p>
<p>To answer the jym626s question, the door has a small glass panel that you can see outside and people outside can see inside. He probably got up and took a glance before he walked off and noticed that she were there. She probably saw him walked off, that is why she could steal the items in less than 5 minutes. Also, she was there when he went in the lab through the locked door earlier. Maybe I shouldnt use the word extensive, however, some professors that he spoke to usually told him that they no longer bring any laptop with them to their office because they got stolen.</p>
<p>Have to agree with Hunt. Some of this is hard to accept, especially from a “new” poster on cc. If there is such rampant theft in any given lab, department or building, it would not be taken lightly.</p>
<p>The seriousness of accusing someone of stealing something when there is any possibilitiy that it did not happen is such that I can see why the head of this facility is loathe to go down this path. It is highly likely, however, that he had a private word with the woman. If there have been a rash of laptop thefts, however, I am surprised that some widespread announcement of the fact was not made and all new employees warned. THough it is common in an open environment ot have laptops and such items lifted, it is not so in in a closed environment. </p>
<p>I reiterate, that it would be a good idea for your son to find another job/ study. Having to watch your things and your back that closely is not something I would want to do or want my kids to have to do unless they made the informed decision to do so.</p>
<p>To answer Hunts question, I do agree that my son probably didnt convey all the details to the authority initially as he did not want to accuse any innocent people. Also, he was in so much of a shock that he simply in denial. He lost everything he has, more than a thousand dollar worth of stuff. No, there is never my intention to make Rice look bad, the reason I posted this message is to see if other people have similar experience, and maybe they are able to tell me what else I can do in this case.</p>
<p>Everything the poster is saying is believable to me. I would be very surprised if any police in Houston go to the trouble of checking pawn shops.</p>
<p>Pawn shops enter serial numbers of the items they receive into a database. This is checked by the police on line. They don’t literally walk into the shops to check the items.</p>
<p>I don’t think that identifying the University was a good idea. It makes it easy for anyone at the university to identify what happened, the student and the accusation being levied and even pinpoint the accused. These boards are monitored by many university peronale, you know.</p>
<p>To answer jmy626s question, my post #20 usually mean to reply to the Post #8 of DuhNaNaNaa. I thought it will go directly to DuhNaNaNaa if I click the reply button on her post. I apologize for the duplicate post. To answer Hunts question: Yes, I am a new member in College Confidential, but I had been visiting the College Confidential for years. My son used to post questions in College Confidential.</p>
<p>To cptofthehouse, thank you for waking me up. I just realized that I shouldnt identify the University. Im posting the question without my sons knowledge; I hope my mistake will not affecting his future at Rice. Is there anything I can do to make amends?</p>
<p>Moderator’s Note: That’s a good reminder to think carefully before you post. We don’t delete posts or threads on request, because that’s all we would be doing all day if we did! We get MANY requests for deletions. Be careful!</p>
<p>I really screwed up this time. I thought I was just being helpful trying to figure out what he can do in this case. It seems like I failed him again. Being in a tight financial situation and bad health, I feel myself such a failure for not able to replace his laptop and calculator and provide him with a descent life. Sometimes, I really feel that he will be much better off without me as his parent.</p>
<p>To any Rice University peronale that happen to read this post, please, please forgive my son. It is not his fault; he doesnt know Im posing his issue here. This post is posted by his idiot mother that didnt know any better in life. That is the reason she is such a failure. Please, please give my son the opportunity and guidance that will help him succeed in life. I am such a hopeless parent. I am willing to make amends to Rice; it is a great university with so many wonderful people. I am sorry for allowing the action of one single person that stole his belongings to bring me down. I never have any intention to affect Rice in any negative way; I was just too caught up in my world that trying to find out what else to do. Im so sorry.</p>
<p>Something is bothering me about this accusation. The OP says, “the custodians closet was next to the locked door” and assumes that she was “lurking” around the backdoor to the lab, when if her supply closet is there, it would make perfect sense that she be there! WHERE ELSE would a custodian go to get her supplies but her own supply closet? I wonder if this family is just not used to being in a large city or around a large complex of buildings and how custodians work. They don’t drag all of their supplies around with them, they make trips to the closet as needed to get what they must use for different tasks.</p>
<p>The OP also says, “She also told my son that her purse was also got stolen. However, there is no police report on that and nobody seems to know anything about that.” Two things stand out for me here. First, the S is assumed to be completely truthful (by the OP and many posters here) but it’s assumed the custodian is lying that HER things were stolen. That sounds like there’s some classism at work. As well, how does anyone KNOW that she never reported it? Did the kid go down and read through the campus police logs? </p>
<p>As far as only three people having keys to the room, forget it. I work in a church for which at least two dozen people who no longer need keys actually have them. Anyone who ever had a volunteer or paid position there is walking around with a key. People forget to turn them in=it’s a huge problem anyplace you have turnover of positions. THIS YEAR there might be only three people with keys, but I’ll bet my life that there are a dozen other kids walking around with keys.</p>
<p>Lastly, of COURSE the school told the OP’s S not to make random accusations about the custodian because she has to feed her family. The jails are full of lower income people who were falsely accused of a crime that they couldn’t afford to fight. Maybe the whole thing happened exactly as the kid says it did. But-1)custodian had a right to to be there as part of her JOB, 2)ALL thefts are still thefts, whether it was the kid’s expensive computer or the custodian’s purse, and 3)in THIS country, we’re innocent until proven guilty.</p>