Tavitas, J.
Following a bench trial, Marion Young was convicted of trespass, a Class A misdemeanor. Young appeals and claims that the State failed to present sufficient evidence to support his conviction. We agree and, accordingly, reverse.
Young presents one issue, which we restate as whether the State presented sufficient evidence to support his conviction for criminal trespass.
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To convict Young of criminal trespass as charged, the State was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Young, “not having a contractual interest in the property, knowingly or intentionally refuse[d] to leave the real property of another person after having been asked to leave by the other person or that person’s agent.” Ind. Code § 35-43-2-2(b)(2). For purposes of the criminal code, “[e]xcept as provided in subsection (b),1 ‘agent’ means an operator, a manager, an adult employee, or a security agent employed by a store.” Ind. Code § 35-31.5-2-12. Thus, to convict Young as charged, the State was required to prove three elements: (1) Young did not have a contractual interest in the real property; (2) Young knowingly or intentionally refused to leave the real property; and (3) Young was asked to leave by the owner of the real property, or an agent of the owner (an operator, manager, adult employee, or security agent employed by a store). Young attacks the sufficiency of the State’s evidence on several grounds, one of which is that the State failed to prove that Young was asked to leave by RCS or RCS’s agent.
Here, the State’s only witness was Captain Hensley. Captain Hensley told Young to leave the property, and Young refused to do so. Young’s refusal amounted to criminal trespass, however, only if the person who asked him to leave was either the owner of the property or the owner’s agent. Young contends that there was insufficient evidence that Captain Hensley was an “agent” of RCS. We agree.
We acknowledge that Captain Hensley testified that “they,” presumably RCS, had asked VPD “to act as an agent of the store.” Id. at 7. We have held before, however, that the testimony of a police officer, by itself, that he was acting as an agent of the property owner is insufficient to establish that the officer was in fact an agent of the owner. See Glispie v. State, 955 N.E.2d 819, 822 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011) (“It is a well-established rule that agency cannot be proven by the declaration of the agent alone.”) (citing United Artist Theatre Cir., Inc. v. Ind. Dep’t of State Revenue, 459 N.E.2d 754, 758 (Ind. Ct. App. 1984)).
The only other indication that Captain Hensley was acting as an agent of RCS was his testimony that someone from RCS had asked the police to conduct extra patrols of the property and “remove anyone that was not allowed on the property.” Tr. Vol. II p. 6. Even so, this does not show that Captain Hensley, or any other VPD officer was “an operator, a manager, an adult employee, or a security agent employed by a store.” I.C. § 35-31.5-2-12(a).
We have held before that “‘a police officer who is neither an owner of a property nor an agent of an owner of a property cannot create a trespass violation by asking a patron to leave and then arrest the patron when [he] refuses to do so.’”
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Accordingly, even if we consider only the evidence that favors the trial court’s judgment and all reasonable inferences that can be drawn from this evidence, there was simply no evidence presented that establishes that Captain Hensley or any other VPD officer was an “agent” of RCS as that term is defined by the relevant statute. Because there was no evidence that Young was asked to leave RCS property by either the owner of that property, or an agent of that property, the State did not prove one of the essential elements of criminal trespass.
We recognize that our holding today may seem to place an impractical burden on police officers. Obviously the State has an interest in keeping unwanted persons from occupying or using the land of a third party without that property owner’s consent. We can envision scenarios in which it is difficult or impractical to summon the property owner or the property owner’s agent to instruct an obviously unwelcome person from a property. Yet it is not our role to rewrite the criminal trespass statute to reflect what we believe to be better public policy. That role belongs to the General Assembly. Our role is to apply the statute as written and look to the language of the charging information to determine whether the State has proven the necessary elements of criminal trespass.
Because the State failed to present evidence that either the owner of the property or the owner’s agent asked Young to leave the property, the State did not present sufficient evidence to support Young’s conviction for criminal trespass. We, therefore, reverse Young’s conviction.
Reversed.
Crone, J., and Brown, J., concur.