Marshall Elementary’s principal received some bad news on Monday afternoon when his teachers realized all of the school’s earthquake preparedness supplies, garden tools and art supplies were missing from their storage shed.
Surveillance footage shows a woman of around 30-40 years old jumping the school’s fence on 15th and Capp three times on Sunday morning, each time taking more supplies. She appeared to be handing the supplies to someone on the other side of the fence, although the video shows only one person. The school reported the incident to the police.
The school was closed on Sunday, so it gave the person the time to make three trips in – at 3 a.m., 6 a.m. and 9:30 a.m, according to principal Peter Avila who was able to get the timestamp from their surveillance video.
“It was about $2000 worth,” Avila said in a phone interview today. “We had radios, water, food, tools to turn off the gas, two way radios; garden tools, art supplies.”
“We were in shock. We have seven years here, nothing like this ever happened before,” he said. “We feel very safe here”
Avila is working with the school district to file a claim and restock the supplies as soon as possible.
“It’s the symbolism of it,” he said. But also the reality, “they took from the school and they took the earthquake preparedness kit so we are put in a difficult position, we have no dolly, no stretcher, can’t turn off our gas, and we have no way to communicate because we had the two-way radios there.”
Lisa Geduldig, a long time Mission resident has, set up a gofundme campaign to raise money to replace the lost items.
We will update this story as we get more information.
After reading this article and other coverage, I wonder:
if the woman in the video been identified and if her apprehension anticipated;
if the school plans on using a more secure location for these important tools and materials;
if the school intends to use this incident to teach about the pain that theft brings to a community.