Hopwood burglarized anew

Three computer laptops and a digital camera were stolen when several rooms at Hopwood Junior High School were forced open during the weekend. The unidentified suspects were so confident of not being discovered that they even found time to cook food in one of the rooms.

Acting principal Beth Nepaial said a Hopwood teacher, whom she did not name, discovered the break-in yesterday morning. When they checked the entire school, they learned that five rooms have been burglarized, including the old and new library, cafeteria, and computer laboratory.

She said the burglars did not spare even the special education room. Nepaial also showed Saipan Tribune yesterday morning the cafeteria where the windows were smashed in.

Vice principal Paster Gagarin immediately called the Department of Public Safety yesterday morning to report the incident.

The police went to the burglarized rooms and inspected the damage inside. The police have yet to determine whether the break-in happened on Saturday or Sunday.

SPED contact teacher Cynthia Castro said she found the room’s kitchen ransacked by the suspects. She discovered that the electric stove had been left on; she also found pots and pans that were used by the burglars to cook food scattered all over the kitchen.

“They even cooked rice,” she said.

Castro said there were leftover food on the table, while ice cream spills and empty candy and biscuit wrappers littered the floor.

She also found the SPED stockroom open and said the burglars might have looked for more food. Castro said the burglars even used their computers.

Castro said she was baffled by the burglars’ entry; it was as if the culprits used a copy of the key because the doors did not show any signs of forceful entry. She said the key to the room was in the custody of another teacher.

“So it’s impossible for them [the burglars] to use a key,” she said.

Of the school’s more than 1,000 students, only 75 use the SPED facility, Nepaial said.

Nepaial said the worst burglarized room was the Lina’la Malawasch Academy room, which was the last room the police checked and inspected.

Nepaial showed the back of the room where the window grill was cut into half. The burglars smashed the sliding glass windows to break into the room. The burglars probably used a chair to break the glass window, said Nepaial, due to the broken chair found outside the room near the window.

She said the glass fragments were all over the floor inside the LMA room. She showed betel nut stains on the keyboard and the vandalized whiteboard. Cabinets were also forced open by the burglars.

Keys that were kept in the cabinet were missing, she said, speculating that one of the perpetrators probably used them to enter other rooms on the wing where the LMA room is located.

She said the burglars or one of them could be an LMA student because they know what rooms and “stuff” to look for. A car key of a teacher was stolen too, said Nepaial.

The other room burglarized was the computer laboratory room. Official reports have yet to confirm whether the stolen laptops came from the computer lab room. A school administrative officer said the school is currently installing new programs into the laptops, and that was why they were in one room.

“When the students do such things, the learning of other children are directly affected,” Nepaial said.

She said she is now waiting for the final assessment and report from DPS and she would forward a report of the incident to PSS today.

Hopwood has a security guard, who is usually stationed at the school’s gate but it was not immediately learned if there was a security guard at the school during the weekend.

Nepaial said this is the second such incident at Hopwood since the last burglary incident in January.