Six University police cars sat outside Marston Science Library and at least six officers searched the area for a suspected criminal Monday afternoon.
The crime: book theft.
Maria Hicks, a food and resource economics undergraduate, left her table on the fourth floor to answer her cell phone.
When she returned, a man at her table was zipping his backpack up, but she thought nothing of it, she said.
Then she noticed her $200 "Data Analysis" book was missing.
She searched for the man with the backpack, who she described as wearing an orange UF Gators shirt.
"I tried to chase him," she said. "He disappeared so fast."
UPD responded by searching the area for people matching the thief's description. Officers searched the bags of several people and questioned them about the crime.
Hicks had borrowed the textbook from a friend and will have to pay her back, she said.
Pam Bonner, a UPD spokeswoman, offered a moral to the story.
"Don't leave your stuff; take it with you if you go somewhere," she said.
