From: drg@biomath.mda.uth.tmc.edu (David Gutierrez)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.marching.misc
Subject: Re: Texas Southern University marching band's "Excellent Adventure"
Date: 16 Dec 1992 23:25:45 GMT
Organization: Univ. Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

Since I haven't seen it here yet, here's the AP story:
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        TOKYO (UPI) -- More than a hundred members of an American university
marching band stole thousands of dollars of electronic equipment on a
shoplifting spree on their way home from a college football game in
Tokyo, police said Tuesday.
        About 120 members of Texas Southern University's marching band
allegedly made off last week with $21,800 in compact disc players, mini-
televisions, watches and electric razors from 18 different shops before
they were caught by local authorities, a police spokesman said.
        The students -- who were accompanied on the shopping trip by six
school officials, including the university's vice president -- were in
Japan from Dec. 3 to Dec. 7 to perform at the half-time show of a
football game between the University of Nebraska and Kansas State
University. The students stopped in the Akihabara electronic goods
shopping district on their way to the airport to catch a flight to the
United States.
        The police spokesman said the band members arrived in Akihabara in
three buses around 10 a.m., just after the shops opened. They scattered
to a dozen shops and allegedly began pilfering electronic items from
shelves and stuffing them in paper bags.
        Store clerks noticed them and chased the students, who fled into
their buses parked near the shops, police said.
        ``We received calls from several different shops almost at the same
time, around 10:40 a.m.,'' the spokesman said.
        One angry shopkeeper told the Kyodo News Service: ``The students were
video-taping our assistants as they chased them to their buses. They
showed no repentance -- they acted like it was some kind of game.''
        Police officers arrived at the scene and pursuaded the students to
return the stolen electronics by telling them the electronics ``don't
function in the United States because of different voltages.''
        The students returned about $18,500 worth of the goods, but
shopkeepers said they were still short about $3,225, the police
spokesman said.
        The Japanese publicity agent that invited the band talked with police
and agreed to compensate the shops if the police allowed the band
members to catch their scheduled flight, he said. Hideaki Niwa,
spokesman for Coca Cola (Japan) Co., the football game's sponsor, said
he was ``very disappointed'' and first heard of the incident Tuesday,
more than a week after the students allegedly lifted the goods.
        Atsushi Fujita, president of Tele Planning International Inc., the
agency which brought the band members to Japan, said it didn't
originally plan to make a stop at Akihabara.

---------------------

When the story ran on the local news yesterday, I believe they said that about
28 members of the band had been accused in the matter.

David Gutierrez
drg@biomath.mda.uth.tmc.edu

"Only fools are positive." - Moe Howard

Newsgroups: rec.arts.marching.misc