Sacramento police arrested a man Feb. 20 suspected of breaking into the Sacramento Bee’s newsroom and stealing the newspaper’s Pulitzer Prize gold medals.
The medals were recovered after detectives and officers arrested Christopher Peterson, 44, of Sacramento, in connection with the burglary.
Officers responded to reports of a burglary Sunday afternoon at the Bee’s office on Alhambra Boulevard in The Cannery, the Sacramento Police Department’s public information office told California Insider.
“Officers responded, conducted an investigation, and identified a suspect in the case,” the department said in an email.
The police department is not releasing any other information about the case to protect the integrity of the investigation, the public information office said.
According to the newspaper, the burglar first tried, but failed, to break into the office late Saturday.
Video footage showed the same man using a tool to pry open the front doors at about 7 a.m. Sunday. Once inside, the man is seen rifling through a security station and entering the newsroom through a second set of locked doors, the newspaper reported.
The man apparently left and returned twice over the next several hours, according to the Bee.
The Pulitzer Prize medals—awarded in 1935 and 1992—were stored in a locked glass cabinet on display in the paper’s newsroom, according to the Bee.
The 1935 medal is 14-karat gold plated and the 1992 prize is composed of silver with 24-karat gold plating, according to the Bee.
The first medal was awarded for a series of stories about a corrupt political machine in Nevada. The second was for the paper’s “Sierra in Peril” report detailing environmental threats to the Sierra Nevada range.
