Vandals hit Northwest ISD vans over weekend

Published Thursday, May 8, 2008

By Mandy Bourgeois

Monday morning was definitely manic for Northwest ISD maintenance personnel who came to work to find their fleet of vans and trucks vandalized and two vans stolen.

The damage occurred sometime between Sunday evening and early Monday morning.

Eleven trucks and vans were damaged, with vandals busting windows and stealing tools and equipment from the vehicles.

The damage estimate, including the cost of the two missing vans, is $100,000.

The list of missing equipment includes digital video recorders and cameras that were going to be installed at campuses. The district also counted missing navy blue maintenance personnel jackets with the names Randy Allen, Ty Hairrell and Kevin Monroe stitched on a white patch.

The vans and trucks were parked in a fenced and gated area at the Support Services Building.

"We assume they jumped the fence. They used one van to basically run through the fence to knock it down," said Lesley Weaver, director of communications for Northwest ISD. "When they stole the vehicles, they just drove over the fence."

Security cameras are located at the site, but the cameras were not working properly and did not catch any video footage of the vandals.

"Something was damaged," Weaver said, adding that the district did not know if either construction at the nearby fire station or the vandals damaged the cameras. "But we're going to make sure every night that the security cameras are working. We're going to pay more attention and make sure that they are working properly at all times."

Weaver said the vandalism was cosmetic for the most part, and the remaining fleet is still in service.

"For the most part it's just cosmetic damage and kind of an inconvenience. We still have some tools. Our people were able to get to campuses (Monday)," Weaver said. "We had a new van already on order. That will be a replacement for one of the vans."

With district personnel uniforms missing, the district requires maintenance crew members to check in at campus offices.

"We wanted to make sure that there wasn't anyone trying to represent themselves as a Northwest employee," Weaver said. "That may be something we ask (maintenance personnel) to do until the property is recovered or it may be something we do from here on out. That's just something we did to keep the kids safe."

Anyone who recognizes one of the missing jackets or vans should call the police. The missing vans are described as follows:

- 2005 white Ford cargo van, Texas exempt license plate number 881-060 with the number "15" painted on the side

- 2006 white Ford cargo van, Texas exempt license plate number 213-866 with the number "17" painted on the side.

Both vans have the Northwest logo on the side.