Tonight, a northside school is reeling after their principal's office was burglarized. It's the second burglary at Trinity Methodist Primary School, and while the last robber was caught after being identified in DVR footage, this time they made sure to steal the DVR as well.
It's a terrible crime committed on an institution that's there to serve and tonight we got the rundown on how the thieves got in and what was stolen from principal Jamael Campbell.
It was a "hold you head" moment for Jamel Campbell this morning when he heard that his office had been burglarized.
Jamel Campbell, Principal, Trinity Methodist
"Early in the morning at 7:00 o'clock one of the teachers that arrived here first gave me a call telling me that the office is open and it has been vandalized. So quickly made my way here and while doing so I called the police as well and when I got here I realized the bar door was open, the board door was open as well and the room was ransacked and so I made my way in to see if I could get footage off of our cameras and I realized then that the DVR was stolen. So that was the only thing that I was concerned about because I know that that's how we caught the last thief."
"The last thief that we caught actually just hopped the fence, you would have believed that he was hopping in his own yard with ease and this fence is taller than I am and he hopped it with ease, so I know that this type of fence would be a hindrance to them getting into the yard."
And this time the principal had to admit that the school got hit hard.
Jamel Campbell, Principal, Trinity Methodist
"Our four main items, our printer, our printer copier is gone, the DVR as I mentioned, a bluetooth speaker and a laptop. A couple smaller items but those are the main ones that were missing at this time."
Reporter
"How does this robbery affect ongoing administrative duties that the school has to carry out?"
Jamel Campbell, Principal, Trinity Methodist
"Quite a bit, quite a bit, we use our printer daily. Right now students are getting into highschool and they need their documents. A report card is coming up. We print on a daily basis so the printer would affect us dramatically but a bit of good news. our area rep donated one to us so if you see me in the office we are working right now getting things out so that stuff can be ready for people."
And while they're trying to get back on track with documents, there's not much hope for last night's paperwork.
Jamel Campbell, Principal, Trinity Methodist
"Scenes of crime came and but these thieves they throw out our clorox and the entire room was soaked, all our documents, papers, they were soaked and so they were unable to get any prints of anything in the room actually."
We asked Campbell what he'd say to those thieves if they were in front of him now.
Jamel Campbell, Principal, Trinity Methodist
"You're attacking yourself, I'm sure your family members, someone, a friend, a relative is here and you're depriving them of their future, their education so really, you're really attacking yourself when you attack a school in the community that serves the community. So, I would ask you to wise up, have some sense and leave the school alone so that the young minds can grow and grow into something positive and be a contributing member of this society and this community."
And the school is wasting no time in beefing up security, they've already replaced both broken locks and secured all their windows against any errant trespassers. If anyone would like to assist the school in replacing what was ruined or stolen they can contact Campbell at the school.
