Tori Lemon
Editor-in-Chief
The Butler Lantern staff distributed copies of their biweekly newspaper on Thursday, Jan.31. Less than 24 hours later, they found that roughly 415 newspapers had gone missing from various racks around the El Dorado campus.
The front page of the missing issue contained a story regarding DeMario Burnett, a former student and football player. On Thursday, Jan. 4, Burnett was arrested and charged with capital murder after a shooting that happened during a robbery. This incident happened in Anniston, Alabama in December of 2017.
Two of the Butler Lantern staff members, Tyler Krenzin and Matthew Will, first noticed that papers were missing in the 200 building while making rounds on campus to check the status of the papers.
“We checked the recycling and trash bins all around the location of the rack and saw no newspapers,” Will, the reporter of the Burnett story, stated in his incident report submitted to the campus police. “The newspaper adviser, Amy Chastain, usually puts two or three papers on each bench or table, but they were also gone.”
The staff members then made their rounds to the Hubbard Center and onto the 500 building to look for newspapers but to no avail. The entire El Dorado campus was searched. The only remaining newspapers were in EduCare and at the rack in the upstairs of the 1500 building.
The staff contacted campus police on Thursday, Feb. 1. On Friday, Feb. 2, Chief of Police Jason Kenney informed the staff that he had seen two students on security footage taking the newspapers off of the rack and disposing of them in the recycling bin–one of which was seen by Chastain and sophomore Mia Rodriguez.
“I was on my way to class, and I stopped to grab the paper,” Rodriguez said. “A tall guy came to the stand, looked at it, shook his head and picked up all of the newspapers and just left.”
A student athlete was one of the those seen on security footage taking stacks of newspapers off of the rack. When asked why said student disposed of the newspapers, the student explained that they felt as though the newspapers did not need to be on campus because of the front page story regarding Burnett. The Butler Lantern staff reached out to the student for their thoughts about the matter on Thursday, Feb. 8. No response was given.
The Butler Lantern staff then decided to file an incident report on Friday, Feb. 2. An incident report results in an internal investigation dealing with the campus police.
“The investigation starts with a complaint from the victim, and a statement is taken identifying lost property, possible suspects and any other relevant information as it relates to the case,” Kenney said. “The statements are reviewed to see if the elements of the reported crime exists, and a formal investigation starts. Reviewing video and taking other witness statements are all also part of this process.”
The incident report included narratives from Kenney, Will, Victoria Lemon, editor-in-chief and Chastain. The incident report was then sent to Vice President of Student Services Bill Rinkenbaugh to review and decide what consequences, if any, should be given to all involved in the removal of newspapers and if this incident violates the Student Code of Conduct.
“For individuals that were specifically identified as being involved, approved Butler policies will be followed for appropriate disciplinary action,” Rinkenbaugh said.
The Butler Lantern newspaper is free to students, and there is no limit on how many newspapers students can take. Unlike some other universities, the Butler Lantern does not charge for the second newspaper a student takes. Because of this, it can be difficult to look at these situations in a criminal matter. As a result, and starting with Issue 8 of the Butler Lantern, the first issue of the newspaper is free, and any other issue is 50 cents.
“I know it is a form of censorship, but criminally there is really not much to look at,” Kenney said in an interview with Student Press Law Center (SPLC) reporter Gabriel Greschler.
Even with that being said, the Butler Lantern lost $711.85 worth of revenue because of the disappearance of their papers once individual paper cost and advertisements are added up. To Senior Legal Fellow Frank LoMonte, the taking of newspapers with the intent to not allows others to see the contents inside is stealing from the publication, as well as from the public.
“Stealing things that are offered to the public for free certainly can be a crime, if you are intentionally interfering with other people taking advantage of the service,” LoMonte said. “I can’t go into the homeless shelter and start ripping up the free winter coats or pouring out the free soup, even though they’re giving away coats and soup for free.”
LoMonte explained that just because something is free does not mean people should be able to take as much as they want–especially when they are not allowing others to have some. He believes there should be consequences for incidents such as this.
“Free” doesn’t mean ‘destroy the whole supply, so nobody else can get one,’ so it’s certainly possible to prosecute someone for taking an unreasonably large number of free items with no legitimate purpose,” LoMonte said. “Even if the police don’t think of taking an excess number of free newspaper as ‘theft,’ they should think of it as vandalism.”
With cost and looking at stealing papers as a “real” crime, some were also concerned with the work and effort put into the publication that many did not get to see.
“I get it it’s a free paper, and you can take one or two, but to throw them away and throw away all of those students’ hard work along with it all because one small story made you angry–that’s wrong,” Rodriguez said.
A letter of reprimand is supposed to be given to the staff outlining the names of those involved and what consequences will be given. On whether or not the staff will be reimbursed or compensated for their loss of revenue is still under discussion, according to Rinkenbaugh.
When disappearances of newspapers happen, LoMonte stresses that staff members should report to the campus or city police immediately.
“The public needs to realize it’s not a joke or a prank to destroy other people’s work,” LoMonte said. “A ton of work goes into producing a news publication, and it’s not fair to the people who’ve done that work to see their labor go to waste. Thefts need to be taken seriously by the authorities, so both the police and, if appropriate, campus disciplinary authorities should always be notified.”
