MU Police Department officers arrested the suspect of last week’s Clery release on three counts of sexual misconduct on Friday, 48 hours after the first sexual misconduct incident had been reported on MU’s campus.
Scott Thoreson, 19, was arrested by MUPD. Two of the three counts of sexual misconduct were reported in last Thursday’s Clery release. A third sexual misconduct incident was reported at 10:23 p.m. last Thursday night, according to MUPD’s incident log.
Thoreson is accused of exposing himself to several women from his vehicle. The suspect in the Clery release exposed himself to two women in MU parking garage WG-11 and again near Turner Avenue and Tiger Avenue on Thursday. The suspect was in a vehicle during both incidents.
The third incident happened near College Avenue and Rollins Street. MUPD thanked the community for additional information that led to the arrest.
Thoreson worked at the Subway on Hitt Street, senior Devin Kelsey said.
“The reason why Scott sticks out so well in people’s minds and why many residents of Defoe-Graham would recognize him is because of his demeanor when he work(ed) at Subway,” Kelsey wrote in an email. “I guess the simplest way to put it is he’s known as a ‘troll’ to customers. By that, I mean that he makes a lot of jokes to customers and often at their expense mainly to entertain himself or the other employees at Subway. These jokes range from the basic — making fun of a sports team that somebody is wearing a shirt for — to the bizarre — he once taped some pickles to my receipt with no explanation given — to the downright inappropriate — he’s been known to joke that people who come in might be gay. He’s told me on more than one occasion that management at his work has yelled at him and made him stop messing with customers because they’ve complained about him.”
MUPD said in their latest Clery release that teamwork between students and officers would make campus safer in the future.
“What I can tell you without a doubt about Scott is that he doesn’t know where the line is,” Kelsey wrote in an email. “I’ve seen him joking around and cross the line from appropriate to inappropriate more than once. I obviously wouldn’t have guessed that he would do something like this, but it doesn’t surprise me whatsoever.“