Manhattan High School is about three months into this school year and already four phones have already been stolen from the South Gym girls locker room during first hour Physical Education. 

According to sophomore Eszter Chikan, one of the people who had her phone stolen, the phones were all tucked away safely in each of these girls’ backpacks and out-of-sight. Still, the phones happened to either be hidden somewhere completely different than next to their belongings or missing in general. 

“I honestly didn’t think [my phone] would get stolen,” Chikan said. “I trusted people. I wouldn’t think people would actually steal. I was kind of mad and hurt… it was a bad phone too. It was an iPhone five.”

Chikan put her phone in her backpack while she was participating in class, but after the hour was done, she went back and realized her phone wasn’t there. She tried to find it by calling but she still couldn’t hear it ringing.

“I was angry,” Chikan said. “I was coming up with ways on how I could catch the thief, but I think that maybe they caught her. But all the phone[s] happened [to be stolen] in the same area. [They] must have been like all the phones were hidden out of sight, and not in the locker. So someone must have seen like ‘let’s put it in their places.’”

The girls dealing with this situation either had to get a completely new phone to replace their stolen one — like Chikan had to — or they found their phones tucked away in the disposal bin in the restroom stalls inside the locker room. An addition to phones being stolen, the other girls dealt with their SIM card being taken out and one female student had a situation where her phone was completely wiped. 

Chikan believes that the thief may have been motivated to steal the phones from the locker room in order to make money at Walmart or any other store where someone can easily cash-in any phone for cash. It’s believed the vandalist did this because those businesses will buy any phone without looking at who the current owner is.

“I know that there are [people selling current-owned phones],” Chikan said. “My mom [and I] looked into it and they all deposit out to Walmart. There you can exchange your phone in for money, and they don’t look at it who’s the phone actually is. It’s wrong, and just rude.”