At 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 6, Mike Stone ’04 stepped out of the shower in his residence at 413 Dryden Rd. to find two men who had allegedly broken into his apartment. Stone, a six foot four inch 287 pound defensive lineman for the Cornell football team, dropped his towel and, naked, tackled one of the perpetrators on his front porch and held him until the police arrived.
“There have been such a rash of crimes going around Collegetown,” Stone said. “Robberies happening constantly, and the fact that things have gotten to the point where people can just go into other people’s houses and start picking stuff out of the room without even thinking about it is scary, and something needs to be done about it.”
Suspects
Ithaca police later identified the suspects as Camilo Rosero and Heider Elhand, both former employees of Pita Pit. “They parted ways with Pita Pit long before the incident,” said Steve Kempf, store manager.
Rosero’s brother Ivan, a student at Cornell, was unavailable for comment.
Upon exiting his bathroom, Stone saw the suspects slinking out of the room of his roommate Tom Calahan ’04. In their possession were Calahan’s laptop and 10 of Stone’s compact discs.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Stone demanded. The perpetrators reluctantly replied, first in Spanish and then in English, “We are looking for Cindy.” When Stone responded, “Who the fuck is Cindy?” the men ran for the door.
Stone chased after them, dropping his towel in the process, and tackled one of the intruders in the door frame of the apartment. The two scuffled onto the outside porch. Stone shouted for assistance, and his neighbors called the police. Ithaca police arrested the two suspects and took them into custody. Both the computer and the compact discs were recovered.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to go chasing after every burglar because you never know if they’re armed or anything,” Stone said. “But I didn’t have a chance to think in that position because it is in my nature to be aggressive.”
Stone’s roommates, Calahan and David Belsky ’04, were not home at the time of the incident.
“Taking the law into his own hands, with no clothes on nonetheless, Mike Stone really came up big for me,” Calahan said later. “While it’s hard to imagine not having my computer, it’s even more difficult for me to imagine my life without Mike Stone. We all feel safe when Mike’s around.”
Archived article by Anne Ceccarini