Previous Story
Spate of burglaries frustrate PSS
|
Posted on Dec 31 2005
The year had truly been a frustrating and depressing one for principals teachers, teachers, and other members of the Public School System.
Federal grants and local funding that they have lobbied hard for to acquire high-tech equipment and improved school facilities were either reduced to ashes or burglarized in early and late 2005.
But what surprised and disappointed PSS the most is that majority of the suspects caught were students of the victimized schools.
Kagman High School officials, for instance, were in a state of shock when they found out in the morning of May 30 that the most “high-tech” classroom in campus, the Environmental Science and Oceanography Room, was burned down over the weekend.
Over $50,000 worth of computer and information technology equipment literally went up in smoke when a fire set off by suspected arsonists engulfed the room.
The equipment lost included newly acquired laptops, LCD projectors, and three desktop computers. The fire also reportedly damaged the school’s audio-visual equipment and Internet wireless modem.
Three days later on June 1, Marianas High School’s Room J-106 was burglarized allegedly by five of its own students. Stolen items included a laptop computer, PlayStation, DVD players, and two cellular phone units.
A week later, on June 11 and 12, burglars took off with computer laptops and a digital camera from Hopwood Junior High School in San Antonio. Amazingly, the unidentified suspects were so confident of not getting caught they even found time to cook food in one of the rooms.
Even before June ended, 13 Dandan Elementary School classrooms fell prey to burglars, making it the fourth school to be burglarized on Saipan in a span of a month. The burglars did not spare even the restrooms of the school as profanities were found spray-painted on the doors of the toilets.
In October, William S. Reyes Elementary School in Chalan Kanoa and the neighboring Head Start Program School were also victimized, with WSR losing four desktop computers and a DVD player from burglars.
Police later recovered the four desktop computers and arrested two juvenile suspects, who reportedly sold the equipment to a Chalan Piao Internet café.
