School is closed for the summer vacation but it seems that has meant open season for thieves who've been targeting one south side primary school. Last night the Salvation Army Primary School on Cemetery Road was burglarized and it's the third time in less than two weeks. We visited this afternoon and found out that heartless burglars may keep 70 students from eating when school reopens in September.
Keith Swift Reporting,
The thieves entered the Salvation Army's kitchen through this door to the storeroom. There was a grill door here but they ripped it off using this crowbar which they left behind. Head Cook Rhoda Pandy says inside was ransacked.
Rhoda Pandy, Head Cook
"I went inside and I was so sad. I said well, I don't know what I will do now. They asked me what was lost and I said I didn't know yet. When I started to look around, one TV that belongs to the reading program for evening school and a DVD (player) that belongs also to the reading program was missing. I continued looking around and I noticed that there was two five gallon bottles of water and there was only one."
And while the thieves ended up in the school's kitchen. They started here in the classrooms where they ripped open these doors. This is the third time in 8 days that they have broken into the school.
Rhoda Pandy,
"They had broken into the school Wednesday morning early and they went with some radios and some cassette players and Saturday night, bringing in Sunday morning, they went into the other door. We shut that first door, we bought a new door and put it on, and they went into the next side of the building and broke that door open and Sunday morning when we came to church that was open. So I went to the boss and I told him that the door was open from the back. He went down there and they had broken into the same door which we had nailed up and they broke into that door and then the kitchen. They ransacked up all the classrooms, everyone of the classrooms on the school building is digged up."
When school is open about 70 kids are fed by this kitchen but with last night's burglary, the program may not continue. All that is very frustrating to Rhoda Pandy.
Rhoda Pandy,
"If the boss thinks about closing down the feeding program, we will lose our jobs and that is where we make our money and that is very hard and that is two times now, two times that they have broken into the kitchen since this new building was put up. I don't know what they are looking for."
And while we don't know who they are, we do know the culprits are either desperate or devilish. For proof of that we don't need to look any further than this outdoor bathroom. The thieves actually broke the door in half in order to get in - and the only thing of value in here was the basin and the toilet.
The police reminds the public that purchasing stolen goods is a criminal offense. Anyone with information is asked to contact the nearest police station or call crime stoppers at 0-800-922-TIPS.
