While some cases of other thefts reported at Seaholm have not been solved, at least one victim of theft took matters into his own hands.
According to a March 12 Birmingham Police report, Seaholm freshman Jacob Rothenberg’s cell phone and iPod were stolen from his gym locker at approximately 2:45 P.M. that same day.
“[Rothenberg] came in at the end of the day, and said that his cell phone had been taken and wanted to know what we could do about it,” Birmingham Assistant Principal Deb Boyer said. “And what we said to him was ‘you know , you can fill out a police report, we have them here and we could certainly give it to Detective Halcrow.”
After speaking to the Birmingham Police Department and filing the report, Rothenburg went online and activated the Sprint family locater.
“I knew that I had the locator,” Rothenberg said, “and I had the password so I just gave it a try and tracked my phone.”
Rothenberg’s phone was still on, so the tracker was able to find the position of the phone.
At about 5:00 P.M. that day, he tracked his phone around the Woodward and 8 Mile Rd. area. Rothenburg, according to the report, then called his mother, Carol Harlow, to help him try and recover his phone. He directed Harlow to a house off of Adams/Big Beaver in Bloomfield Hills. Harlow went to the door of the house where the locater claimed the items were.
According to the report, a young blonde woman and teen boy answered the door and Harlow immediately demanded the return of her son’s belongings. At first the woman and teen resisted, but when Harlow threatened to get the police involved, both complied. The male teen walked to the silver colored Ford compact car and retrieved the phone and iPod.
As soon as this event was reported, the BPD investigated. They discovered that the teen was a Seaholm junior and Detective Corporal Ron Halcrow drove to the residence to talk with the parents of the suspect.
According to report, the mother said she was uninformed, telling Halcrow that she had been told that her son had just returned items that had been lost.
On March 17, according to a supplemental report, the police sat down with the suspect and his parents, all of whom gave thorough background information.
The police reports stated that the student, a Seaholm wrestler, did not save enough money for a gift for his upcoming anniversary for with his girlfriend. He came up with the idea stealing items for money two days before the thefts accrued.
Months before he took anything he figured out how to open a locked locker. Following directions on a Youtube video he discovered how to make the Master key of a specific model of lock. During the one day that he committed these thefts, March 12, he stole from three different lockers.
He broke into the first locker during first hour. The suspect and a friend, who – according to the report – is also on the wrestling team, opened a locker, taking two cell phones, an iPod Nano and $15 in cash. The unknown friend took the items and stowed them in his car.
The second locker break-in happened during third hour. The student left his Chinese class and returned to the gym locker room. Alone this time, he used his homemade key to open a locker, taking a Samsung cell phone. Placing the phone in his pocket, he returned to class.
His final break-in, according to the report, was at the end of the school day about 2:45 P.M. Again opening a locker, he took a Palm Pre cell phone and an iPod Touch MP3 player.
According to the police report, after the suspect acquired all the items he drove to a pawn shop on 8 Mile Rd. and Woodward Ave where the salesperson refused to buy his items.
Upon returning home is when the confrontation occurred between Harlow and the suspect.
After this meeting, according to the report, the suspect became uneasy about the other items he stole, now hidden in his home, he gathered the items and decided to get rid of them.
The accused locker thief and his accomplice drove over the bridge on Derby Road and tossed out three cell phones from the car onto the rail road tracks. The two then stopped at a BP gas station on Southfield Road and threw the iPod Nano into the parking lot.
According to the police reports, the suspect recovered the three cell phones from the train tracks the morning of the interview but was unable to find the iPod Nano.
The suspect admitted what he did was, according to the report, “stupid” and turned over all three cell phones to Halcrow.
Both the suspect and his friend who assisted him in the thefts were required to pay restitution and sign a diversion contract.
