ST. GEORGE – A St. George man is facing multiple counts of theft and burglary after being arrested by Dixie State University Police upon being detained by a football coach when he tried to burglarize a locker room.
According to the probable cause statement filed by police, Scott Brumfield, DSU’s football coach, contacted university police after detaining Richard Fitzgerald, 29, of St. George, in a Hansen Stadium locker room around 6:45 a.m.
Brumfield explained to the responding officer that over the last month approximately $1,000 of the players’ cash and belongings had been taken from the locker room during early-morning football practice, the statement said. In order to identify and catch who was responsible for the thefts, the coach set up a camcorder in the locker room to run while the team was outside practicing.
The officer detained Fitzgerald at the scene while watching camcorder footage in which he “observed Mr. Fitzgerald suspiciously wandering and intensely rummaging in and though the lockers.”
The officer read Fitzgerald his rights and proceeded to speak with him. The officer found that Fitzgerald had apparently burglarized the locker room three times since Aug. 19 as a means “to support his drug habit.”
No stolen items were found on Fitzgerald when he was arrested. However, the officer described finding a piece of foil in the man’s wallet that was allegedly going to be used for smoking OxyContin.
Fitzgerald was booked into the Purgatory Correctional Facility and charged with four counts of third-degree felony burglary. He has also been charged with two class-B and two class-A misdemeanors related to theft and drug paraphernalia. Bail currently stands at $20,000.
Persons charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @MoriKessler
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2013, all rights reserved.
At a football game last Friday at Hurricane High School, the locker rooms of Hurricane’s team and the opposing team were burglarized. I wonder if it could be the same guy. I hope the authorities will look into it; the players lost money and other possessions. I’m glad this guy was caught at least. I am a student at Hurricane, and I hope they catch the guy behind the robbery at Hurricane High.