A cart full of about 20 laptop computers, meant as teaching tools for city elementary kids, was stolen, along with two desktop computers, on June 7, Charlottesville police say. The computers, many of them new, white Apple MacBooks, are worth about $25,000 total.
Sometime after 6pm last Thursday, police suspect, one or more robbers broke in through a wooden door and made their way directly to the computer lab. They likely used a truck or a van to haul away the laptops and cart. The suspects were probably familiar with the building, since they only forced open two doors to get to the goods. No alarms were set off during the burglary.
“I think in the future the schools in general will have to take a look at what areas are alarmed,” Police Captain J.E. “Chip” Harding says.
Expensive, portable technology like laptops and iPods have put burglaries on the rise, Harding says. “There’s a readily available black market out there for this stuff.”
Each of the computers is marked as property of Charlottesville City Schools. Police are asking citizens to report anyone trying to resell the computers.
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