Principal Asks for Public Help to Recover Stolen Equipment
Thieves have once more targeted a Belize City school; this time, it was Trinity Methodist. News Five spoke with the principal today about what happened, what was stolen and how the public can help.
Andrea Polanco, Reporting
Burglars broke into Trinity Methodist Primary School sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning. Principal Jamael Campbell found his office ransacked when he showed up for classes on Tuesday.
Jamael Campbell
Jamael Campbell, Principal, Trinity Methodist School
“Upon arrival we noticed that the door pried open and the locks were all broken. The office was in disarray – a terrible state – things were all over the place. More noticeably was that all our disinfectant, our Clorox was tossed all over the entire room. The first thing I checked was can I get any footage off the camera and that is when I realized the DVR was missing.”
The thieves stole an assortment of items from the school; among those are electronics that the school uses every day which include their digital video recorder and a laptop.
Jamael Campbell
“Four of the main items are the printer, our DVR, the Bluetooth speaker and a laptop that was here. Those were the four main items that are missing. Description – we have a Kyocera Printer – it is one of those ones we use in the office. Our Bluetooth speaker is about three feet high; and we have a Lenovo laptop and our Anke DVR that records the video from our cameras.”
Andrea Polanco
“Principal, do you have a value for these items?”
Jamael Campbell
“We have an estimated total of damages and value for those items somewhere around four thousand dollars.”
Andrea Polanco
“For the school to suffer this – how tough is it for the school at this time?”
Jamael Campbell
“It’s extremely tough – you know for the entire country this has been a tough year and so you can just imagine thieves and those things are just a little to nothing coming in. We can’t bear the burden here and we really need the community to support us at this time so that we can be ready for school onward.”
And they need the community’s help once again because this isn’t the first time the school has been targeted. Principal Campbell says that thieves broke in eight times last year. And with this recent burglary, they are now forced to find funds to beef up security on the school grounds once again.
Jamael Campbell
“Last year, between January and March we were targeted eight times. With the community support we got cameras and we beefed up our security here and we caught the culprit. So, for it to happen now we are really baffled as to whom it can be this time.”
Andrea Polanco
“What can you do moving forward to try and secure the property here?”
Jamael Campbell
“Definitely beef up security more. So we want to change the locks that we use. We want to use some tougher locks and ensure that our rooms are not as easily penetrated as it was this time – even though it was difficult because we had four locks on these doors and they penetrated these four locks so we want to ensure that we have even more security this time; alarm systems; camera system, so that we can be better prepared.”
Reporting for News Five, I’m Andrea Polanco.
If anyone approaches you trying to sell the school’s stolen items, please call the nearest police station or contact the school directly.
