Pete Moye’
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A Cerritos College student was arrested on accusations of petty theft of a textbook from the bookstore on Sept. 12 at approximately 9:40 a.m., according to Campus Police Chief Richard Buckowiecki.

Andres Alegria, bookstore sales associate, observed the student that police identified as Ricardo Duran walking out of the bookstore with a technology textbook concealed under his shirt.

“He was walking out [of the store] and he beeped, he had no bags in hand,” he said, “I immediately saw the front of his shirt. There was an outline of a book under his shirt.”

The textbook area has been closed off for the past week. Employees are only allowed to go in during the moving of books, as it can be hazardous to customers.

“They were surprised as to why he returned so quickly to the sell back his book. If he stole it from here why didn’t he go sell it somewhere else. He came back and we were dumbfounded” Alegria said. “My managers congratulated me for doing what I did.”

Click Here to listen to sales associate Andres Alegria and store manager Robin Lee.

According to Robin Lee, this wasn’t the first time a theft in the bookstore has happened. “I’d say probably during rush we caught, [during the first two weeks of class] maybe one person a day.”

Although Cerritos College has had thefts it’s not the college with the most thefts.

“In our region, amongst the other colleges, and this is two years and four years that are around us, when we do our inventory every year and we know how much has been stolen, ours is one of the lowest.

“So that means we have a great student body. We don’t have as high as a rate of shop lifting as other stores do and that speaks a lot about the students at Cerritos. The Fact that rate is so low at a time like this when a lot of stores are sharing a hire rate of shoplifting we haven’t shown a higher rate at all.”