*UPDATE: The person has been caught by Vanderbilt University Police Department. The person has been working at Vanderbilt for 30 years. VUPD got involved after consulting with the district attorney office and it was the qualifier that we put on the front that the first issue was free and each additional was 50 cents that made the difference.
We would like to thank VUPD and the district attorney office who have been working on this all day. We would also like to thank our readers who shared this story via social media.*
Out & About Newspaper is seeking its reader’s help to stop the theft of its newspapers from one of its locations at Vanderbilt University.
For the past year a person has been stealing hundreds of copies from the rack in Light Hall, located on the Vanderbilt University Medical Center campus. An individual has been caught doing this on camera, but the image is not one that can clearly identify the person.
“We’ve asked for help from Vanderbilt Police and from Vanderbilt’s Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action and Disability Services Office,” said Jerry Jones, publisher of O&AN. “While they expressed great concern that a potential employee or student could be doing this, they offered no assistance in making it stop unless we secured the identity of the person responsible."
The individual stealing the newspapers clearly has a bias towards the GLBT community and targets our publication. The video footage shows a female with long black hair approaching only the O&AN rack, taking about 100 papers and discarding them in the recycling bin.
“Vanderbilt is such an inclusive and supportive environment for its GLBT community, employees, students and patients, that we’re surprised such a hate filled action would take place there,” Jones said.
O&AN is asking its Vanderbilt readers to be on alert and help catch this individual. If you have information on who this person is, please email editor@outvoices.us.