Musician Calum Bell claims that two Harvard students attempted to steal his fiddle from The Burren, an Irish pub in Somerville, last Thursday night.
Bell filed a criminal complaint with the Somerville police yesterday and today the story is featured in Harvard’s newspaper The Crimson.
According to the article,
A video obtained by The Crimson showed a violin bow falling out of one of the student’s coats as they attempted to leave the Irish pub in an Uber. A second video showed the other student attempting to explain why they left the bar with the fiddle.
The videos mentioned were not included in the Crimson post.
But at least two videos of the incident have appeared on YouTube:
The first video was posted today by Bell himself,
The second video, uploaded by Daitus Atorius, appears to show the same encounter from a different angle.
When caught in the act, one of the students reportedly said
We brought a fake fiddle to the club. We call it our slanjo.
Both would-be fiddle thieves were female students and one of them is an active editor at The Crimson.
The college paper did not give the girls’ names. But both were contacted by reporters and refused to comment.
Bell estimates that his fiddle costs $2,500 to $3,045.
Because the girls allegedly took the instrument with the intent to permanently deprive Bell of its use, they could potentially face the felony charge of larceny over $1,200. See M.G.L. c. 266, Section 30.
Bell told reporters,
I don’t think that this behavior obviously should be tolerated by Harvard. I really think they should be expelled.
Let’s hope the Somerville police and the Harvard administrators are not so rash.