The athletic team banners representing Big 12 Conference schools stolen from G. Rollie White Coliseum Dec. 6 were returned anonymously behind the eagle statue in Cain Park a few days after the incident, according to Athletic Department officials.
The five members of the group who stole the banners have yet to be identified.
The eleven banners stolen are worth about $3,000.
The University of Texas banner was the only banner left behind. Images of the five unidentified individuals, one female and four males, were recorded at the time of the incident by one of the security cameras in G. Rollie, but were inadequate in supplying the evidence needed to locate those involved.
Details of how the individuals broke in remain unknown because the buildings are presumably locked down each night, said Rob Stewart, promotions and game operations coordinator.
“It was a break-in. The doors were not unlocked before the incident,” Stewart said. “I think that to a degree it may have been a prank, but there is nothing that would lead me to believe that they were from Texas rather than A&M or A&M rather than Texas.”
An anonymous phone call was made to the Athletic Department a few days after the burglary saying the banners had been dropped off at Cain Park.
The banners were in the same shape they were before they were stolen except for the University of Oklahoma banner. The banner was damaged by being cut off of the wooden bowel rod from which the banners hang rather than being untied in the same fashion as the others, Stewart said.
“I don’t know why they cut that particular one over any of the others,” he said.
It will cost $300 to $400 to replace the banner as well as additional labor costs to rehang all of the recovered banners, Stewart said.
The Athletic Department has gone as far as requesting that the University Police Department step aside from the investigation. UPD has agreed to transfer any leads that it receives directly to the
Athletic Department, said UPD Dectective Travis Lively.
“At the time of the burglary, they did not wish to press charges,” Lively said. “They are handling the investigation internally.”
The Athletic Department’s main objective was to retrieve the stolen banners, but they are persistent in their quest to locate the five individuals who were spotted by the cameras. The exact measures that will be taken against the culprits have not yet been determined.