UC Berkeley Fraternity Steals $25K Sign

[LaneSig]

https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/09/...n-worth-25000/

Police went to the Sigma Chi house and recovered a sign valued at $25,000. The sign had been spray painted with Sigma Chi's Greek letters. Due to the value of the sign, this is a felony.

Sighing at the stupidity.

[carnation]

I don't think that college stupidity will ever change. When I was in college, this house near the stadium had a gorgeous evergreen in the front yard and these psychos from the nearest dorm cut it down and set it up in their foyer as a Christmas tree. My mother said that that tree was in that yard when she was a child.

[Kevin]

Honestly though, I would be very surprised if Sigma Chi actually did this. It seems much more plausible that someone else did this, tagged the sign with Sigma Chi letters and left it on their roof.

At any rate, as much as the news article tries to paint this as open and shut, I think it's anything but that.

[navane]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Honestly though, I would be very surprised if Sigma Chi actually did this. It seems much more plausible that someone else did this, tagged the sign with Sigma Chi letters and left it on their roof.

At any rate, as much as the news article tries to paint this as open and shut, I think it's anything but that.

"...four days later, a UC Berkeley student spotted the sign on the Sigma Chi roof. Police say it had been spray-painted with “ΣX,” the Greek symbol for the fraternity."

Are you suggesting that someone else stole the sign, spray painted it with the fraternity's letters, climbed up onto the ROOF of the fraternity house and put it there without being detected, where the sign sat for FOUR DAYS? And no one in Sigma Chi noticed the sign on the roof of their house but a passerby did?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by navane

"...four days later, a UC Berkeley student spotted the sign on the Sigma Chi roof. Police say it had been spray-painted with “ΣX,” the Greek symbol for the fraternity."

Are you suggesting that someone else stole the sign, spray painted it with the fraternity's letters, climbed up onto the ROOF of the fraternity house and put it there without being detected, where the sign sat for FOUR DAYS? And no one in Sigma Chi noticed the sign on the roof of their house but a passerby did?

Sure. It took passers by 4 days to notice it on the roof. And if Sigma Chi noticed it on the roof of their house, they may have been internally working out how to remove it and who to report it to without looking culpable. Things can be quietly moved and deposited on roofs.

In my hometown there was a large fiberglass hippo statue in front of a local glass business on Broadway. A favorite HS prank was stealing and relocating the statue. IIRC, it was stolen more than once and deposited on the roofs of local high schools without anyone knowing other than the kids who did it knowing exactly how it got there (I assume someone's dad had quick access to a flatbed an a crane of some sort).

The owners have since filled the thing with concrete, but yes, large things can be moved and placed on roofs without anyone being the wiser, and I would bet that fraternity pranks at UC Berkeley are more likely than not to involve some level of sophistication and the likelihood of Sigma Chi stealing this, vandalizing it, and placing it on their own roof to be discovered seems low to me.