Students at Risk of Phone Theft Downtown

By Jillian Gaier
AUSTIN, TexasEvery Thursday night, thousands of eager UT students muster into cabs
headed toward one destination: Sixth Street. Upper and lower classmen alike flood the streets
and crowd the bars, reveling in Austins historic entertainment district.
For many, Dirty Sixth embodies the ideal college nightlife, providing students with easy access
to drinks, music and peers. But sometimes, a night downtown generates more costly
consequences than just a hangover the next morning.
I love going downtown on the weekends but I have to admit, Im always impressed with myself
when I make it back home with everything I went there with, UT student Kate Beispel said.
Beispels luck ran out on Sept. 18 when her phone went missing at Burnsides Tavern on Sixth
Street. But her phone wasnt simply lostit was stolen by a serial pickpocket.
The theft of Beispels phone was not a rare occurrence, nor was it an isolated incident. In fact,
the 78701 ZIP code, which includes the downtown area, has retained one of the top five highest
annual theft rates in the entire city, according to the Austin Police Department website. As a
result, UT students are at a heightened risk for phone theft whenever they socialize on Sixth
Street.
It was no coincidence that the night Beispels phone was stolen, five other college students lost
their phones at Burnsides as well.
We were told by a confidential informant that Freedom Machado steals phones downtown,
APD Detective Eric Cleveland said.
After conducting surveillance on the 27-year-old suspect all night, Cleveland and his unit
arrested Machado for theft by appropriation, a Class A misdemeanor.
In Machados arrest affidavit, Cleveland said that police located all six stolen iPhones, along
with 19 empty iPhone cases, in Machados car.
Maddie Wakeham, one of Machados six victims, remembered having her phone in hand just five
minutes before realizing it was gone.
When I checked my purse and my phone wasnt there, I turned on the Find My iPhone app
and found out that it was off, she said. I didnt call in a police report because I just assumed
that it got stolen.
Instead of calling the police, Wakeham said she went back to Burnsides the following day to see
if a bouncer or bartender had seen it lying around. To her knowledge, the phone was gone for
good.

Joey Peters, a bartender at another bar on Sixth Street, said typically bars get calls about lost and
stolen phones at least twice a week.
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If they lose it here, we have no trace of it, he said. There are too many people in and out. On
a busy night, well click in like 2,000 people. We have no way to track everyone.
Soon after her trip back to Burnsides, Wakeham got a call from an APD officer telling her to
retrieve her phone. She said police asked all of the victims to give sworn statements and recall
the sequence of the previous nights events.
While the crime was solved in this case, victims dont always regain their lost property.
A majority of the time, phone theft cases are suspended, pending further leads, Cleveland said.
This enables detectives to move onto higher-priority calls until more information about the phone
is developed.
Overall, he thinks that females are the most prone to theft downtown because their purses are at
the hand level of pickpockets.
Females are used to people bumping up against them at crowded bars, so they dont necessarily
associate a bump with someone opening up the outside flap of their purse and taking their
phone, Cleveland said.
As a witness of these situations, Peters was able to confirm that the bar environment makes
females especially vulnerable.
Drunk college girls are most at risk because they give off the impression that theyre careless
with their belongings, he said.
Peters also advised downtown-goers not to get intoxicated to the point where they lose control of
their senses. Keep track of your belongings, Peters said. If youre aware and alert at all
times, youll be fine.