The 15 residents of the University’s Alpha Chi Sigma professional fraternity endured an eventful weekend, which included a theft and a burglary.
An old refrigerator and a Pentium 166 computer were taken from the fraternity between Thursday and Sunday.
The refrigerator had been placed outside next to a backyard shed and was discovered missing Friday morning. Fraternity member Katherine Pederson fell victim to a burglary sometime Saturday or early Sunday when a suspect stole her personal computer.
According to Minneapolis police reports, Pederson said she was out from 9 p.m. Saturday to approximately 3 a.m. Sunday morning. When she returned home, she found her bedroom window pried open and her computer and broken record player gone.
House manager Colin Kilbane said someone probably noticed her window — easily visible from the street — wasn’t locked, and took advantage of that.
“I think (the stolen refrigerator) was a crime of opportunity,” he said. As for Pederson, “she just left and didn’t lock her window.”
The $150 computer is of more concern to Kilbane who said he was waiting for materials before he added new security lights to the roof.
“I was just a little bit too late,” he said. “It was lucky that they only took her computer and it wasn’t worth terribly much.”
Unlike the computer, the refrigerator was stolen from outside the house where it had been moved to make space for a party the previous weekend.
Kilbane said he noticed the refrigerator there on Thursday night, but when he awoke planning to return it to the house Friday morning it was gone.
“Why would anybody want to haul away a refrigerator?” he questioned.
“I hope they are happy with it, because once they open that sucker up, they’re going to discover that there is a lot of mildew and mold in there and it stinks like hell,” he said.
Minneapolis police have no suspects in either theft.

In other police news:
ù University Police arrested Robert Hugh Olson after he pulled a knife and shouted racist comments at a custodian Thursday night at Rarig Center.
According to University Police records, Olson approached University custodian Babatunde Oyedele and repeatedly called him racist names while pulling a knife from his pocket.
Oyedele, fearing for his safety, called 911. After searching the area, police found Olson outside the center.
A search of Olson yielded two knives, and Oyedele identified the man and the knife used to threaten him.
University Police Det. Marianne Scheel said the altercation began when Oyedele sat down on the same bench as Olson.
She added she thinks the crime was racially motivated.
“I think it was a bias crime,” Scheel said. “The victim happened to sit down on the same bench as this guy was on, and the guy didn’t like that apparently or didn’t like his race.”
Olson has been charged in Hennepin County District Court with making terroristic threats, a felony for which he could receive up to five years in jail and a $10,000 fine.

ù Minneapolis police arrested University sophomore Gabriel Rodriguez-Doerr Saturday morning after he showed up naked on the porch of Kristine Danielson and her roommates.
Danielson awoke about 5:20 a.m. when she heard noises outside her apartment at 1000 University Ave. S.E. She immediately called police and awakened her roommates.
According to police records, they found Rodriguez-Doerr naked from the waist down, apparently intoxicated and attempting to curl up in a ball on a shelf in the apartment’s porch.
Rodriguez-Doerr told police he had friends at the house, but Danielson and her roommates stated they didn’t know who he was.
Submitting to a Breathalyzer test, Rodriguez-Doerr, 19, had a 0.21 percent alcohol concentration in his blood, nearly three times the legal limit in Minnesota.
Police booked him on indecent conduct and minor consumption charges and he spent the night in jail.
“We really didn’t see him at first and we didn’t want to go in there and look, obviously,” said Danielson’s roommate Dharma Amundsen.
When they did get a look at the early-morning visitor, it became apparent to them that he was intoxicated, Amundsen said.
“He was sitting up on a ledge, and he wasn’t clothed either, which was kind of scary,” she added.
It took only about five minutes for police to arrive, leaving the residents no time to speculate about the intruder’s intentions, Amundsen said.
Rodriguez-Doerr said he didn’t have much memory of the incident at all, and he had no idea he was at a stranger’s house.
He added he was at a party on Eighth Street with some friends and doesn’t know how he ended up on the porch.
“Wow,” he said. “It’s news to me.”
Despite the memory lapses, Rodriguez-Doerr said he regrets what happened.
“I just really regret drinking that much,” he said. “I really feel stupid for having that much to drink. It embarrassed me. I mean, jail is not fun.”

Justin Costley covers police and courts and welcomes comments at [email protected]. He can also be reached at (612)627-4070 x3224.