Burglars hit Puyallup schools over Holidays

More on the theft in my district...

TARA MANTHEY, The News Tribune, Published: January 4th, 2006 04:22 PM
Police are looking for three people who stole up to $100,000 in
computer and high-tech equipment from four Puyallup schools over the
holiday weekend.

Security tapes show three individuals taking computers, monitors and
laptops from Emerald Ridge High School, Stahl Junior High School and
Rogers High School on Sunday night. They returned to Puyallup High
School on Monday night and took more computers and video equipment
including projectors and editing machines, police said.

The suspects appear to be in their late teens or early 20s, said Ed
Troyer, spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.

There was no sign of forced entry to exterior or interior doors, alarms
weren’t tripped and it appeared that the suspects knew where expensive
equipment was located, Troyer said.

“We’re not saying that it’s an inside job,” Troyer said, “but there’s a chance that somebody got a hold of someone’s keys.”

School officials are changing locks on several buildings in the
district, said Dick Cvitanich, Puyallup School District’s assistant
superintendent of K-12 instruction.

Officials also are looking into what kind of information may have been
on the computers stolen from administrative offices. Confidential
student information is normally saved to a central server, Cvitanich
said, but the district hasn’t determined if any sensitive information
was saved to the hard drives of the stolen computers.

The district is a member of a risk-management pool that will likely
cover the damages, he said. The deductible is $10,000 and will come
from the district’s general fund, he said.

Tacoma-Pierce County Crime Stoppers is offering up to $1,000 for
information leading to arrests and charges filed in the case. Callers
remain anonymous.

Reach Crime Stoppers at 253-591-5959.