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Stop, flute thief!
By adamg on Fri, 04/05/2013 - 1:45pm
Transit Police report they are looking for this guy, on charges of musical thievery:
On Monday, March 25, 2013, at approximately 11:40 AM, a female placed a flute, $4,000 in value, on a bench at Park Street MBTA Station, Red Line northbound center platform. She boarded a train, leaving the instrument behind. The subject depicted above retrieved the property and boarded the next train. The instrument is still missing.
If you know him, or see a guy trying to sell an expensive flute, contact T police at 617-222-1050 or send a text message to 873873.
UPDATE:
The owner of the Flute is a 21 year old student at the Berkeley College of Music. She personally owns the flute and is devastated by this incident. She is on a scholarship, as part of the scholarship agreement she needs the instrument to fulfill her obligations to the school. She also teaches music and requires the use of her flute to do so. The loss of her instrument has significantly effected her personally and she would be grateful to anyone who facilitates its return.
Earlier:
MBTA strikes right chord with Berklee professor who lost violin on trackless trolley.
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Comments
hmmm
Someone palmed a flute on the T.
Nothing new there.
I wonder
Will somebody finger him?
If he's also stolen some string instruments, perhaps he should fret?
For everyone's sake...
...I hope he has had his tubas tied.
idiots
1)If you're going to spend several thousand dollars on an instrument, INSURE IT.
2)If you're going to spend several thousand dollars on an instrument, or anything for that matter, and carry it on the T: DON'T PUT IT DOWN.
Get over it
If Yo-yo Ma can leave his strad in a cab, we can give a student a break for leaving a flute on the T.
My God
How do you leave a $4000. musical instrument on a subway station bench? This is kind of like people driving off with their baby on the roof.
Can't be inflation alone...
But I'd like to know how a flute gets to be $4000. Student instruments are only in the $100-$200 range, professional-level upwards of $1k or so.
Inflation = incentive
Flutes can certainly be $4K, and perhaps the student was given it as a gift. But given the fact that this happened 10 days ago and is only now being reported, my theory is that the T police has been waiting for it to show up at an instrument shop or pawn shop, and is hoping by announcing an inflated value it will prompt the thief or whoever has it to try to cash it in. There is really no other reason to say how much it (allegedly) costs in this kind of alert.
Actually....
... professional flutes start at around $2500, so-called "intermediate" flutes start around $1000. A 21-year old student at Berklee would likely already be using a flute in the professional range.
Stop the presses: People with
Stop the presses: People with money spend it.
A $100 flute is not a student flute - it's a kids' first instrument, and it will need work that will cost significantly more than that to get it in proper shape to play. I bought a student flute in the late 1980s, and I paid more than $100 for it.
Jesus, enough with the capitalist rage
Last time I even opened my flute case was well over a decade ago. Once I got my sax, I basically only used it when I had to, and I know what prices were back then - my alto was $1k new, and decent flutes were $500 and up, new. My awful DeFord was limping along and I looked into how much it'd cost to replace it with something that didn't look like it had been used in construction.
Working student instruments without need of a re-padding could be had then for $100, and considering I see them on Amazon for that price now, I think maybe your standards are just as much in need of adjustment as mine. I'm certainly not saying a Gemeinhardt is going to be $100, but it's not like $100 is only going to buy you a recorder either.
...capitalist rage? I get my
...capitalist rage? I get my piano tuned twice per year. Is that okay with You? That would be $100 every 6 months. Judge me now for only You are worthy to assess what we the ignorant masses spend on our music. Your humble servant, a capitalist piano playing wretch
Brain fart!
Some people are just absent minded. I can't even begin to understand how you could leave a four thousand dollar flute on a bench riding the T. But some people don't check their pockets for their phone and their wallet either when they get off the T. Their problem.
I'm sorry but I don't
I'm sorry but I don't consider picking up something left behind thievery. It would be in GOODWILL for him to turn it into lost and found...but other than that OH WELL!
I'm also indifferent about this one.
I definitely feel bad for her losing her instrument. If she lost it though, and someone picks it up, how is it considered stolen? If there is not tag on it with a name, phone number address or any of those, then this person obligated to turn it into the local police station?
I have far too many questions about this. Hope she gets it back.
Police station is the answer
See my post below. ;-}
If a person picks up another person's lost instrument
If a person picks up another person's lost instrument and then expropriates it for his/her own, then that is stealing.
The law doesn't care what you
The law doesn't care what you think about it. It exists regardless of your precious feelings.
You may think this, but....
... you are not correct.
The general rule of law is this:
A finder of property acquires no rights in mislaid property, is (often, but not always) entitled to possession of lost property against everyone except the true owner, and is entitled to keep abandoned property.
Specifics...
Massachusetts General Laws Annotated. Part I. Administration of the Government. Title XX. Public Safety and Good Order. Chapter 134. Lost Goods and Stray Beasts.
§ 1. Report of lost money or goods by finder
Any person who finds lost money or goods of the value of three dollars or more, the owner of which is unknown, shall within two days report the finding thereof to the officer in charge at a police station in the town where said property was found, or, if there is no police station, post notice thereof in two public places therein, or, instead of such report or posting, cause notice thereof to be advertised in a newspaper published therein.
§ 4. Rights of finder if no owner appears
If the owner of lost money or goods does not appear within one year after the finding thereof, they shall enure to the finder, provided he has complied with section one.
I think you're overlooking
I think you're overlooking the precedent established in Finders v. Keepers.
I'm thinking...
... that children's playground rhymes don't trump our state's statutes (and hundreds of years of pre-existing common law). ;-}
but...
Possession is nine tenths of the law. :-) And he seems to have come into possession of something someone ABANDONED.
Sorry
I just quoted our state's law -- and it does not follow the legal "fakelore" you seem to be relying on. Lots of "common knowledge" of this sort is, in fact, utterly incorrect.
This law needs to be updated
If I walk into my local police station with a five dollar bill, they may very well send me to the local pub and tell me to have a nice day.
I'm also wondering how someone is supposed to pick up anything they found, and know it's worth more than three dollars. The flute is a poor example. It probably looked like several ounces worth of silver.
Well, in any case, if I lose something, I lose it. I can't remember ever losing anything of value. Thanks to my OCD I check to make sure I have everything. I even make sure all coats and jackets I buy have zippers. It sucks but I don't lose stuff. If I did, oh well.
Really?
Really?
So, if you leave your car on the street in front of a restaurant and when you come out it's not there, you figure that whoever took it home is entitled to keep it?
Or if you leave your luggage on the sidewalk while you turn around to pay the cabbie, same deal?
You can't be serious. A valuable musical instrument sitting on the T is obviously not abandoned property.
I agree that it is proper to
I agree that it is proper to contact Lost&Found before immediately taking ownership, but both of your examples are stupid. For the first, a car weighs a (literal) ton and has security measures to prevent casual theft. A parked car is parked and locked on designated public or private property, not accidentally left or misplaced. Luggage taken from directly behind you while your back is turned is more akin to a pickpocketing.
This example is more like, "Really? So, if you accidentally forget a stack of $100 bills on a train seat, and later after you leave, someone else takes it, you figure that whoever took it home is entitled to keep it? You can't be serious."
As in, sure I'd be pissed if it happened to me, but it's not like it's something ridiculous or unexpected.
The guy is not a thief
WE aren't talking about someone palming something while you are still there. The person LEFT IT BEHIND and this guy picked it up. That's not stealing and to vilify the guy because some girl forgot her flute is retarded.
And btw a better example is if you left your baggage on a bench at a bus stop and yes if you were dumb enough to forget it then you LOST IT. Personally, I'd try to find the original owner because that's how I roll and I can only imagine what it must be like to lose something you value. HOWEVER that guy is NOT a thief but the person who left it behind IS an idiot.
Absolutely a thief
He found property he knew wasn't his, and didn't turn it in to the authorities. He's a thief.
it's nice that you would have returned the flute...
however your use of the word retarded, not to mention to use of RANDOM CAPS, makes your post sort of nasty and unkind.
State law REQUIRES...
...that you take the lost item to your local police station. If you do, and the item is not claimed over the course of the following year, you may then (and only then) get ownership. The law really is quite clear and simple. If you do not follow the law, you have, in fact, mis-appropriated (i.e. stolen) the lost item.
May be the law, but
Even according to the law, the guy's not a thief. This is not a section of criminal law. I would imagine that this section deals with conflicts of ownership. In other words, if you lost, say, a bicycle (forgot where it was, left it somewhere unchained for a few days, something like that) and someone found it lying there unattended, they could establish ownership by law through the chapter referenced.
The guy should have turned it in. I do have a fear that if he knows now, through media, that someone wants it back, he may hesitate lest he be charged as a thief.
Massachusetts law on larceny isn't too clear, but...
... I don't think that I would want to be the one to test the legality of "conversion" of such a valuable "mislaid object".
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I feel sorry for this
I feel sorry for this woman.
At a particularly stressful time in my life, one morning I managed to get up and leave my bag--with all my stuff in it (wallet, camera, phone, glasses, checkbook, you name it)--on an Orange Line train. Of course, despite contacting T staff immediately who then radioed the train, that bag was gone, gone, gone. That was a several hundred dollar lesson in always double checking that you have ALL your things before leaving the train.
Fortunately, I had insurance.
Let's hope that this is an enduring lesson for this woman, in both being careful and insuring those things which are most valuable to her.
Unfortunately, I suspect the flute is in a dumpster somewhere.