BANGOR, Maine — A group of Cohen Middle School students learned firsthand how crimes are solved after they toured the Bangor Police Department’s headquarters Monday evening, Sgt. Tim Cotton posed on the department’s Facebook page.

When the police station tour was over, one student noticed her jacket and cellphone were missing. Then another girl in the group discovered her iPhone 6 also was missing.





A review of the video surveillance cameras showed that Ayla Carney, 28, of Old Town had stopped by to station to pick up a court summons for an earlier theft and had rummaged through the children’s coats, Cotton posted.

“The video recording system told the tale of a thief continuing to be a thief,” he wrote. “A leopard can’t change its spots, but it sure can steal a pink Columbia jacket and two cellular phones.”

The girl with the iPhone had installed a tracking application and the phone was traced and “found to be at a local medical facility near Stillwater Avenue,” according to Cotton.

As Officer Daniel Gastia drove into the parking lot of Acadia Hospital, he noticed a woman near a vehicle wearing a pink Columbia jacket.

“Both of the stolen phones were found to be on the floor of the car and due to the overwhelming evidence amassed against her, the thief was placed under arrest and relieved of the stolen pink coat,” Cotton wrote.

Carney was charged with theft and violating her bail conditions. She was taken to Penobscot County Jail and has since been released, a jail official said Wednesday.

“What was to have been only a tour of the local police department became a case study in American justice,” Cotton posted.