Sticker Shock : USC Safety Staff Slaps Warnings on Items at Risk of Being Stolen

They stuck it to Juanita Castillo when they found her office unlocked at USC.

“Gotcha!” read the orange stickers pasted on her computer screen and printer and attached to her key ring and wallet inside her top desk drawer.

“You could have been ripped off--Secure Your Property!” explained the back side of the removable labels.

“Gotcha,” campus safety officer Gerald Baker said to Castillo, manager of a university cafeteria. “Your door was open. Anybody could have walked in and taken your stuff.”

Baker and partner Don Thomas were on an unusual patrol--walking through buildings and slapping stickers on bicycles, backpacks, purses and other property left unattended at the school south of Downtown Los Angeles.

The stickers are a reminder that thieves can walk off with valuables while owners aren’t looking. Hundreds of the labels have been distributed in an awareness program launched this week.

They are a jolt to some. An insult to others.

“I was watching my office,” Castillo protested.

“We were here four minutes before you walked up,” Thomas replied.

Across the lunchroom, Baker pasted “Gotchas” on three backpacks abandoned on a corner table. Freshmen Peggy Han, Jason DaCosta and Karen Suh, all 19, were surprised when they returned with their food.

Han said her pack contained nothing of value. But Suh cringed at her sticker: “My wallet’s inside. And my car keys. I’m going to be more careful,” she said.

DaCosta sheepishly checked to make certain his books, calculator, sunglasses and keys were still inside. “My friends think these stickers are so lame. But I’d have to say it’s a good program,” he said.

In the nearby library reading room, senior David Taghioff, 22, watched belongings left by another student in a study cubicle get tagged.

“I never considered security until I got ripped off two semesters ago,” Taghioff said. “I got up and went 20 feet to throw something away and I lost a $38 book. People just don’t think--I’ve seen people leave their laptop computers on the tables here and walk away for 10 or 15 minutes.”

Outside, the officers spied a university golf cart parked on a busy sidewalk. Loaded in back were a television set and VCR.

Driver Ashanti Luke, 19, a sophomore and part-time campus employee, was apologetic when he returned to find warnings plastered to the cart and its cargo.

Campus security Lt. Mike Kennedy said 7,500 “Gotchas” have been printed. His officers will continue distributing them until the supply runs out.

That may not take long. That’s because USC counted 2,059 thefts last year--up 10% over 1992.

To a security officer, statistics like those getcha.