Suspect Has A Philosophy For Stealing

Tue., May 19, 1998

From Staff

When an alarm sounded at the Tacoma Public Library on Saturday, employees stopped an 18-year-old man at the front door.

Out of his backpack, the man pulled a copy of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” a bible of the beat generation, and handed it to security workers.

Anti-theft bar codes had been removed from the book’s covers, but one remained inside the spine.

When police arrived and asked for an explanation, the man replied, “Well, your values and my values are different. What I think is against the law is very different than what you would think is against the law.”

The officer asked the man to try again. He then said he had removed the bar codes because library workers had refused to give him a library card, because he is a transient.

Checking the man’s backpack, officers found a copy of “Naked Lunch” by William S. Burroughs, another beat generation writer, that was missing from the Lakewood Library.

As he was taken to the Pierce County Jail, the man said, “The law is against people who don’t own houses. Those books belong to everyone, so how could I be stealing them?” He was booked for investigation of shoplifting and possessing stolen property.

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