Troy University Police arrest library trespasser

(Alaina Arnold (left) and Will Smith (right) take Darren Van Smith (center) into custody for trespassing on campus today at 2:53 p.m. PHOTO/Brittany DeLong)   Brittany DeLongCo-Business Manager Troy University police took a 34-year-old man into custody today, Sept. 26, and charged him with trespassing on campus. Darren Van Smith, a resident of Troy, was arrested in the library after a tip was provided to campus authorities. “We had a student last year who came into contact with this guy,” said John McCall, chief of university police. “He started sending her some vulgar text messages.” “Basically ‘screw the coffee lets just get on down to business. You know what this is all about,’” McCall said. The student asked Smith to quit calling and texting her and refused to see or talk to him, McCall said but the man persisted. The student reported him to the police. “We made contact with the boy last spring and told him to ‘stay off campus: you’re trespassing,’ ” McCall said. “He decided to take it upon himself and come back to campus this year thinking we’d forgotten him. We hadn’t. “So we picked him up and charged him with trespassing and locked him up.” Patrol officers Alaina Arnold and Will Smith took Van Smith into custody and delivered him to the Troy City Jail. McCall said that Van Smith has a criminal history and has used the library as his hunting ground where he sits and looks for women. He also said that Van Smith is a former Sodexo (Troy Dining Services) employee and was fired in 2006. Reba Allen, university graphics director, said that the man was also seen in the hallways of Wallace Hall between 2 and 2:30 p.m. Allen was in the photography department and saw the man walking around looking lost. She asked whether he needed any help. “I thought there was something suspicious about him,” Allen said. “He just wasn’t acting right. I got up to see where he was going. I was scared he was going to go into my room.”