It’s not exactly true that the Poway, CA school that was hit by vandals near the start of March 2009 doesn’t have a security system. It just doesn’t have one comparable to the wireless home security systems that many homeowners use to foil even the most adept intruders. Vandals were able to skirt the security cameras in the school without being detected.

The Poway High School at the Espola Road campus was broken into very early in the morning on a Saturday by one or more vandals. They managed to get away with doing quite a bit of damage because the security camera onsite was pointed in another direction when they entered illegally.

The hooligans broke out windows in four portable classrooms, leaving broken glass strewn everywhere. They also trashed at least 26 vehicles, most of which were parked in the area of the auto shop. Car windows had been smashed out and some of the cars had been sprayed with black paint.

In another classroom investigators from the Sheriff’s Department found filing cabinets thrown over onto the floor and hand lotion squirted onto several computer keyboards. Nothing was reported missing, so it appears to be a matter of purely malicious destruction.

The staff sergeant who visited the scene said the person(s) responsible for the devastation would be charged with felony vandalism since there was no doubt the damages exceeded $400. By the time the high school students returned to class on Monday morning, the principal made sure the debris had been removed. Some of the windows had to be boarded up temporarily.

A state-of-the-art home security program would not have permitted such an episode to occur. The vandals would have instantly triggered a motion sensor alarm which then would have altered a monitoring center and the local authorities of an imminent threat. These types of security packages can be custom designed at reasonable costs to accommodate commercial applications, such as schools. It makes sense that a building where our youth are receiving an education is protected against the threat of vandalism and burglary. Incidentally, a $1000 reward is being offered for information that leads to the arrest of the perpetrators.