NH Teacher Charged With Theft From School
SALEM, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire junior high school teacher is charged with theft after police say he took a camera from the school where he teaches and pawned it.
Salem police say 46-year-old Stephen Pierce took a Nikon camera earlier this month from another teacher’s classroom at the Woodbury School in Salem and pawned it for $150. The camera is valued at nearly $700.
That's grand larceny, which is a felony. This guy's career is over - he will never teach again with a felony conviction. He's going to spend the next 25 years of his life working menial jobs over $150. What's positively mind-boggling is that this is a teacher; this is someone that you would expect would have the tiniest shred of common sense.
He showed his damn license to pawn something he stole.
Think about that for a second. He stole the camera that he was going to pawn. He showed his license, with his picture, address, date of birth, etc. on it. It's a pretty safe bet that the shop took a copy of his license - otherwise I doubt they'd remember someone pawning a camera. This guy is a teacher, charged with filling young impressionable minds with knowledge, and yet he's too stupid to figure out eBay or Craigslist?
The breach of trust, committed over less than a day's pay, is astonishing. The casual way in which he approached it, though, is more shocking - he obviously didn't think he'd get caught, even by giving his license when he pawned the stolen camera. I hope there's a drugs/alcohol/gambling connection here - something, anything, to explain how someone could be so incredibly stupid and yet not wander out into traffic on I-93...
People never cease to amaze me - and that's not said in a good way...
That is all.
9 comments:
Any police officer or prosecutor will tell you that this is not an unknown phenomenon. Some people seem unable to cope with their current lives and so give themselves a deus ex machina via a petty but career wrecking crime.
I think this sometimes explains "crazy" adulteries, too.
Sounds like he would be a good candidate for a TSA job.
It does sound like a "needed money in a hurry" situation. I'm a little skeptical of the $700 valuation though. Maybe that's what the school paid for it, but if it's a 3 year old digital camera it's not worth anywhere near that now.
I'll bet the Teachers Union covers for him and gets the charges reduced so he can keep-on keeping on even if somewhere else, after all they can't lose a good dues-paying member.
I'm thinking maybe he has a drug problem?
HankH
I don't think I've ever had my license copied when pawning something, even firearms...
But they *do* copy down the information, and in recent times, keep it on the computer to access when redeeming/renewing the loan.
However, my experience with spendy school hardware is that it's always tagged as such (usually acts as an inventory tag as well), or electropencilled, or both.
I should think that showing up at The House of Three Balls with something that says " High School" would generate a stink-eye of some magnitude. (Never tried it, meself.)
"[whatever] High School", rather.
I keep forgetting that angle-brackets (and their contents) are disallowed.
Dave H: how much the camera is worth depends on the camera model. A point-and-shoot - hell there aren't many of those that are worth $700 new, let alone used. A dSLR, on the other hand - a used high-end pro dSLR can still bring two or three grand. $700 new is about right for a base dSLR like the Nikon D3100.
As for why this guy threw his life away for $150: I'm guessing that he, like many people, didn't know:
a) every digital camera, like every computer, cellphone, smartphone, tablet, MP3 player, or other electronic device sold has a serial number somewhere on or in it.
b) pawnbrokers are required by law to keep accurate records of items they buy and sell. Guess what the easiest way to identify an electronic device is?
I'm amazed that Jay thinks teachers, strictly because they are educated, have any common sense!
This is the group that is actively indoctrinating our children and grand children with socialist ideals, after feeding at the trough that capitalism has created!
How could the vast majority of them have ANY COMMON SENSE?
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