11-year-olds face charges after they allegedly broke into school buildings, trashed property
Three 11-year-olds are facing charges after they allegedly broke into their Texas school district’s buildings and trashed them.
The Whitney Intermediate School in Hill County, Texas, was burglarized around 5 p.m. on Sunday, according to police. Surveillance footage showed three youngsters breaking into the district’s maintenance facility and the adjacent school. Police were notified of the break-in at 6 a.m. Monday.
“This is the first one we’ve had here in Whitney in the 10 years I’ve been here where our suspects were this young,” Whitney Police Chief Chris Bentley told Waco, Texas, news station KWTX.
According to Bentley, the three students trashed the building and spray-painted male genitalia and other offensive symbols on the district’s maintenance vehicles. As a result, those vehicles have been deemed unusable.
“Everything thrown on the floor, cellphones broken, portable radios broken, a lot of stuff written on the vehicles, so the vehicles could not be driven any longer, and the computer – so the district was not able to create work orders, they had to go back to a manual system just to get maintenance done today,” Bentley told the outlet.
According to police, the three students entered the maintenance building through a window. After they wreaked havoc, they then found keys to enter the school, where they stole iPads and other small electronics.
Three students were removed from their classroom on Monday afternoon to meet their parents and be questioned by police, KWTX reported.
“Each one of the parents told me that last night, when their kiddos came in, there was something either secretive about them or something that made them wonder,” said Bentley. “One parent even told me ‘I was not surprised when you called me today.'”
The stolen items were recovered from the students’ homes. The three 11-year-olds were transported to Limestone County Juvenile Detention Center in Groesbeck, Texas, where they face charges of burglary and criminal mischief of government property.
Bentley told KWTX that the damages amount to about $20,000. A hearing is scheduled for the three on Wednesday.
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