Don’t mess with Beata Jones.Dan Rogers Hall is decorated with posters that read, “This property is protected by Beata Jones” with a photo of the Neeley associate professor of Professional Practice in eBusiness.

Jones is receiving praise from her colleagues after her attempt to retrieve her wallet when it disappeared from her office Wednesday morning.

“Everyone was impressed with her tenacity, even though it may not have been the wisest thing to do,” said Mark Muller, assistant dean of the Neeley School of Business.

Jones said she left her office in Dan Rogers Hall that morning for a brief moment and left her door ajar.

She said she returned, accompanied by three women, to find a man in the corner of her office and her cabinet drawers open.

“I could tell he had no business being there,” she said.

Before she walked into her office, she shouted, “I’m not comfortable!”

The women she was with stayed close as Jones walked into her office and questioned the man.

He told her he was looking for his brother who had a 10:30 a.m. appointment, but, Jones said, she did not have any scheduled appointments that day and did not know the name the man gave her.

She questioned him further, and he said he was looking for the main office.

“I very rudely replied, ‘Does this look like the main office?'” she said.

Jones said her first impulse was to check for her wallet, which should have been in her purse hanging on the back of her office door.

When she saw that it was missing, she ran after the man who had left a few seconds earlier.

Laura Thomas, assistant director of the leadership center, followed close behind and called TCU Police from a downstairs office.

Jones ran toward the main parking lot on Lubbock Street, and saw the man heading north about 50 feet in front of her.

“I shouted, ‘my wallet’s gone! I want my wallet back!'” she said.

The man stopped, turned around and reached into his pants.

“At that point I got scared,” she said.

The man pulled out the wallet, walked toward her and handed it to her. No words were exchanged except a “thank you” from Jones. The wallet’s contents were intact.

“I felt sorry for the man,” she said. “I think this was an act of a desperate man.”

Jones credits her reaction to both intuition and the fact that her stepson had experienced identity theft.

“I was thinking about the pain of having to go through that again,” she said.

TCU Police arrived at Dan Rogers Hall almost immediately, but could not find the suspect.

The man was described by TCU Police as a black male in his late 30s or 40s with a light beard. He was wearing a white t-shirt, black Dickies and gold-rimmed glasses.

Jones’ wallet is the second to go missing on campus this week. Another disappeared from Reed Hall Jan. 9.

TCU Police Detective Vicki Lawson said students and faculty should be conscious of what’s going on around them at all times.

“What I have done could be conceived as extremely irresponsible,” Jones said. “When this happens to you, you don’t think. You act from the gut.”

Jones said she will be more cautious now and the door to her office will most definitely remain locked.

“People think it won’t happen to them, but their number could come up,” she said.