By OLIVER GOOD

Staff writer

Hillsboro Police advised two Tabor College students to return a “junky wheelbarrow” they allegedly plucked from a scrap metal pile on the corner of Ash and Grand Sts. Dec. 10 while on their way to do laundry.

Assistant Chief Jessey Hiebert responded to the call, because the location was not a spot trash is regularly collected and disposed.

“It was a junky wheelbarrow,” Hiebert said. “They were using it to transport laundry.”

Hiebert described them as educated kids that hailed from larger urban cities who said they had never had any contact with law enforcement in their previous 18 years of life.

“When I pulled up, they were obviously shocked when I started mentioning words like ‘burglary and theft,’” he said. “They told me they were planning to return it anyway after they had finished their laundry.”

Hiebert said the students were dumbfounded. They told him “the cops are everywhere in Hillsboro.”

Police Chief Dan Kinning said officers periodically respond to calls involving college kid antics.

“They’re supposed to be adults, but with things like this the kids are just feeling lazy, or maybe don’t have a car and don’t want to carry their laundry that three or four blocks to the laundromat,” Kinning said.

Hiebert also noted officers generally pay attention to the little details in a small town, because little details sometimes lead to arrests for bigger crimes.