The high school finished its investigation Monday into a flurry
of locker burglaries without additional suspensions, an
administrator said. However, the police have launched their own
investigation and have several suspects, police said.
The high school finished its investigation Monday into a flurry of locker burglaries without additional suspensions, an administrator said. However, the police have launched their own investigation and have several suspects, police said.
About 2:50 p.m. Wednesday, a few football players broke into about 20 lockers in the boys changing rooms, administrators and students said. Several thousands of dollars worth of portable digital music players, portable video game systems, wallets, cell phones, cash and clothing were stolen within minutes.
One student, found with burglary tools but without stolen property, was suspended for at least two days, Principal James Maxwell said. However, the administration did not suspend anybody else in connection with the burglaries.
“We don’t have a lot of proof at this point,” he said.
On Monday, administrators gave a final report to police, who have begun an investigation into the incident.
The school first notified police of the burglaries last Wednesday, administrators said. However, police have still not filed an incident report and have not arrested any students. According to the California Penal Code, the suspended student could be arrested for possession of burglary tools.
As of Monday afternoon, police did not give an explanation for why an incident report had not been filed or why an arrest was not made. However, police believe the incident to be important and have not been treating it more lightly because it occurred at a school, Sgt. Jim Gillio said.
“We need to be there to investigate independently of the school,” he said.
While high school administrators said that in past months there had been additional burglaries – spurred by the online spread of a simple technique to pick combination locks – the police incident log does not reflect that.
This discrepancy between reports from the high school and police could be the result of victims only reporting the crimes to the high school and not police, Gillio said. If victims are not willing to come forward to police and report the specifics surrounding a theft or burglary, officers often times cannot piece together enough information to file a report.
“Without a victim, we don’t have a crime,” Gillio said.
In the case of the Wednesday burglaries, police have several victims that are cooperating with the investigation, Gillio said. Although Gillio would not give details about evidence, he said the police are making progress.
“We do have suspects in this case,” he said.
