Two men walked into the Hornet Bookstore and walked out with two computers they concealed under their clothing after lifting them from the second floor demonstration desk.

Stolen was an Apple iBook and a Gateway laptop computer.

“When we looked at the security monitors of the event we were able to see two young men take something out of their pockets to pick the lock that secured the computers to the table,” said bookstore director Julia Milardovich.

A third person is believed to be involved, but the tape only show two people stealing the computers, Milardovich said.

“They worked really fast, and it took them only a few minutes. They tucked the notebooks under their shirts and walked out,” she said

When the clerk came back to the computer desk he discovered the computers had been taken within the five minutes he had been gone to assist a customer purchasing a computer downstairs, Milardovich said.

This is a reflection of a current trend in computer theft on campus.

Two student’s laptops were stolen when they were not being watched.

Two Dell towers and monitors were also reported missing from a shipment out of Sacramento State’s receiving warehouse. Each system was worth $1120, and was reported stolen within the same week of the theft at the University Bookstore, Public Information Officer, John Hamrick said.

The shipment from the receiving warehouse consisted of about 30 or 40 computers on March 3; two were missing.

“The computers could have been stolen but the two from the warehouse were most likely an honest mistake on my part. I must have made a bad count on the inventory,” said Receiving Clerk and Manager of Property Accounting Jeffrey Williams.

The computers from the receiving warehouse shipment were purchased out of the University’s budget to provide new computers for an Alpine Hall lab.

“The state doesn’t pay insurance for these goods because it would be too expensive to maintain,” Williams said.

The computers stolen from the Bookstore on March 7 were purchased from and insured out of the University Foundation’s budget in January. The Apple laptop was valued at $1200 and the Gateway was valued at $1000.

“The University Foundation normally replaces its demonstration models once a year because the University buys them and cannot afford to buy the most current equipment on the market. The Bookstore just recently started carrying Gateway computers before the demonstration model was taken, so the stolen equipment was fairly new,” Milardovich said.

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