While thieves were never at the top of the list of upstanding citizens to begin with, a few went to new lows by robbing a preschool over the Thanksgiving weekend.
A preschool. Isn’t there some kind of moral code against that?
It gets even better. One of the items stolen during the thieves’ two-day haul from Vail’s Mesquite Elementary School and its campus preschool was hearing aide equipment used and owned by a deaf student.
We wonder if taking the proverbial candy from a baby is next on their list.
The thieves first hit Friday night, Nov. 26, by stealing into the elementary school’s classrooms at 9455 E. Rita Road and ripping 15 projectors out of their ceiling mounts as well as ripping off wireless airports, routers and a host of other equipment, a news release from the Vail School District said.
The burglars also rifled through teachers’ cabinets and desks, taking their computers and other items.
That’s the night they hit the campus preschool, running off with a WII Game Console and games that were part of the preschool program.
School officials hired a security team to watch the campus Saturday, but the thieves apparently had a lot of time on their hands.
They simply waited until security personnel finished their night watch and left at 5 a.m. Sunday. Then thieves broke in again.
That time around they pilfered 12 more projectors and another haul of equipment including laptops, routers and airports, as well as did more rummaging through teacher cabinets and desks.
The school does have an alarm system, the release notes, but the system does not cover the classrooms. Perhaps it should, as the Thanksgiving weekend burglary was the fourth time Mesquite Elementary has been hit this year.
With school budgets scraping the bottom of the barrel, however, we wonder where the money would come from to install a more comprehensive security system.
In the meantime, school administration urges anyone with information on these vandals and bandits to contact the school.
School officials are appealing to the community for information about the vandalism and thefts. Please contact Superintendent Baker at 403-8835 or Principal Katherine (Katie) Dabney at 437-3874.
[tnipoll]
What do you think?
Is robbing a preschool as low as you can go?
How should schools protect their equipment?
follow rynski:
This is about as low as you can go, that and the elderly. It seems that this is happening a lot this year, with all the bank robberies that we have had, the burglaries, I even read a story of all the cars that were broken in to at the U of A. Crazy times we live in.
it’s both crazy and sad, oakland. thanks for comment.
bank robberies GALORE, that’s for sure – plus some guy who shot up a convenience store front door, plus those car robberies…ugh.
and speaking of the elderly, a 100-year-old Wal-Mart greeter in wisconsin was shoved to the ground after she was trying to find out if some lady had paid for the stuff in the bottom of her cart.
nice.
Another new low. It’s shocking what some people are capable of doing.
I didn’t hear about the WalMart worker. Do you know if she’s allright?
hiya azmouse,
yes – wal-mart greeter was bruised a bit but fine – she returned to work four days later. i may use story as topic of friday’s column, so stay tuned….
and also agree that people continue to shock with some of their fine behavior.
I’m not shocked anymore. It seems like the more we evolve, the less civilized we become. We have shown we don’t do real well when we live in masses, just look at crime rates in larger cities than in smaller ones.
Have Walmart greeters that are 6’6″ Italian guys with guns. ..Or German guys with guns. Then see how many get knocked down.
Students used to have locked lockers. Teacher used to have locked desks. Our paranoia about bombs and guns in schools has left the doors open to thieves.
Expect more of this if the economy doesn’t improve. With 1 out of every 4 children living in poverty in Arizona, and our senators only talking of making more war, watch the anger and crime rate increase.
The slugs that do these things would do them regardless of the economy. Here in the P.R.S, it is still common to see car windows knocked out and mail boxes broken into, although it was hard to determine that there is, or was a recession, happening here in the USA. I believe in punishment, as rehabilitation will only come from within.
Hey Rynski, I hate to admit it…but the thought of clobberin’ these greeting goons has crossed my mind. One of ’em followed my daughter and I after we turned down a smiley sticker a few moons back, tried to stick it on my daughter’s back. Putz.
Anyways…look for drug addled teenage hoodlums in this and similar cases, they are the only thugs heartless enough to steal from children without remorse, save for a few miscreants I work with. (kidding)