BURGLARS STEAL 17 COMPUTERS

Five burglars broke in to computer graphics and animation teacher Tony Peluce’s classroom, C-3, at 2 a.m. Nov. 18., taking 17 iMacs valued at $36,000. The burglars parked off campus, wore hoodies and gloves and avoided looking directly at security cameras.

“They spread out through our campus shining flashlights to see what was inside,” Principal Kevin Buchanan said. “One of them looked in Peluce’s window and summoned [the others].”

The individuals used a bolt cutter to break through Peluce’s door. They took only the computers, leaving behind mice, keyboards, power cords and expensive DSLR cameras and tablets.

“And then they were gone. All of it took about 20 minutes,” Buchanan said.

Firmware on the computers protects them from being accessed. The burglars may, however, plan to break them down and sell the parts, Buchanan said.

The school ordered new computers to replace the stolen ones Wednesday. Insurance will cover all of the costs of replacement.

According to Buchanan, from images captured by school security cameras, these burglars carried out a similar theft at Agoura High School Nov. 6.

“We have strong suspicions that these are the same people. The cars matched, the technique, the method, the timing,” Buchanan said.

The burglars left the bolt cutter they used to break in at the scene. Police have recovered it as evidence and are investigating.

“Cases like this, it usually takes time to get everything investigated…so people need to be patient. But, we do have some decent information,” Cpt. John Reilly, the media relations officer at the Ventura County Police Department, said.

In addition to the strict financial costs, Peluce noted that students in his classes lost their artwork stored on the computers.

“You put a lot of yourself into your artwork, and there was some beautiful work on there that kids lost. But, I really think that we’ll be resilient, and that we’ll recover,” Peluce said.

Some of the more significant content was stored on the school servers, so students will not be beginning again from scratch.

“It’ll take us probably two weeks to get caught up again, but we’ll get caught up,” Peluce said. “I think it’s a learning experience, and we’ll come back strong.”