Virginia France has had enough of shoplifting.
"I'm through with that," the University Store spokeswoman recently told a reporter who came to ask about the store's revamped security system. After the new system was installed, France sent out a media release in May describing the system's success in catching shoplifters.
She had expected a few articles in local papers touting the U-Store's heightened security, and hopefully a resultant drop in shoplifting attempts.
What she got was an avalanche.
From The Daily Princetonian to The Princeton Packet, the story was picked up by the Town Topics and the Times of Trenton. From there it moved to bigger outlets.
The New York Post, the Star-Ledger, the Progressive Review and Newsweek ran items on the report, and the New Jersey Times contacted 10 of the charged students in hopes of garnering interviews.
Borough Police spokesman Lt. Dennis McManimon told the Associated Press that over the years "very, very few" University students have been arrested for shoplifting, but Mercer County prosecutor Marc Citron had a set of comments that made better copy.
Citron told the Times of Trenton, "Some of [Princeton's] students feel that they are so privileged, that they have the privilege [to steal]."
He also called shoplifting the University's "little secret," adding that "nobody wants to think that a Princeton University student, a future secretary of state . . . would dare to commit a shoplifting."
Citron's statements began to reappear in other articles in newspapers and on the Web.
"Are Princetonians Entitled to Shoplift?" asked one headline. "Shoplifting Epidemic in Princeton," declared another. Many columnists speculated on "why such students would steal" and what this meant for society.
"Perhaps," education news commentator Kimberly Swygert asked on her website, "college tuitions have risen so high that even kids who can afford to attend Princeton find themselves short of pocket change?"
In a Newsmax.com editorial, Free Congress Foundation CEO Paul Weyrich cited the story as signaling a "decline in the American character" and called for increased religious training in schools.
In a news article titled "Shoplifting 101 at Princeton," the website for Minneapolis TV station WCCO said Princeton students were "increasingly being caught shoplifting from the school store." It mentioned the heightened arrests' connection with the new security system only briefly and indirectly before moving to discussion of Citron's statements.
In the meantime, France was being flooded with calls from the media.
"Some [reporters] were quite aggressive in their pursuit of what they perceived as truth," France said. "They were trying to make the case that Princeton students are spoiled rich kids, whereas our perception is that Princeton students are a diverse and loveable group."
France said she was careful during such conversations not to implicate the student body as a whole.
She told the Associated Press, "What a shame after all [the charged students have] done to get into [Princeton University], the sacrifices they've made, and of their parents, to have a blob on your record."
Still, the calls kept coming. Eventually France lost count of the number of papers in which the story appeared.
"If the University of Texas store caught some shoplifters and the Houston Chronicle ran a story on it, the story wouldn't spread to other papers around the country," she said.
"It's only because these are Princeton students that people want to say they're privileged and greedy."
Citron could not be reached for comment.
If given the chance to publicize store security again, France is uncertain whether she would send out the same kind of press release.
"We had wanted to create more local awareness of tougher security at the store," she said.
"But the way the press picked [the story] up and ran with it, it wasn't helpful."
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