Stolen items return!

I was meeting with a student this morning when I got a phone call.  Odd--I rarely get phone calls in these days of email and texting.

It was the Cedar Rapids Police.  They had my Kindle.

A woman came into the Police Department on Friday with it.  She'd bought it from a co-worker who'd gotten it from someone else.  When she tried to register it so she could install apps, a message was sent to her:  this Kindle was reported stolen.

I'm very grateful for her for taking it to the police!

Anyway, once they found the serial #, they knew it was mine.

"Can I have it back?" I asked. 

"Yes," said the officer.

He also had another question.  I'd had a diamond ring stolen, too, and the PD had also come across a ring that they thought had been stolen. 

"We got it on Tuesday.  Someone had tried to sell it at the local pawn shop near Coe.  He said he had bought it for his girlfriend at Wal-Mart, but when the pawn shop staff looked at it closely, they knew it was worth a lot of money." 

They checked with one other person who'd had a ring stolen, and she said it was too small to be hers; this ring was a size 5, like the one I reported missing.  He wondered if I would look at this one. 

The police officer brought the two items over to Coe, and I talked with him out in the parking lot.  He handed over the Kindle, in a heavy plastic ziplock bag.  (By the end of the day, I got all the apps restored, my books back on the virtual shelf, and the Kindle re-registered.)

Then then he showed me the ring.
"That's it!"  I said.  I recognized it immediately.  I put it on my finger--I have size 5 fingers like my grandmother, so it fits just fine.

The officer asked me if I knew what it was worth.  I said I'd never had it appraised.  He asked me if I would appraise the ring and let him know how much it was worth.

"We can't arrest the guy who brought it to the pawn shop because he'd just say he bought it off the street," he explained.  "But if it's worth over $1000, we can arrest him for having stolen property in his possession, and it'll be a Class D felony." 

Apparently, this guy has been involved in some other burglaries--or maybe he's just a suspect.

So, OK.  I'll go get this appraised.  Maybe it'll help them get the guy off the streets.

As for the other stuff--it's still out there somewhere.  I suspect that he sold the items "on the street."  But still: if someone who bought something from him decides to get some quick money for it at a pawn shop, those things may make their way back to us. 

But for now, hurray for honest people and for pawn shops and for the CRPD!