Crooks made the most of students’ summer vacation, snagging thousands of dollars of electronics from Brooklyn schools in at least three separate heists.
In the worst burglary over the all-too-short summer break, thieves heisted 17 Apple iBook computers from a locked cabinet in Williamsburg’s Academy for Young Writers on South Third Street.
The crooks got into the locked classroom and opened a combination lock between June 29 and Aug. 25, escaping from the high school, which is between Driggs Avenue and Roebling Street, with the laptops.
Construction workers have been in the school since July 1, and all school faculty members know the combination to open the cabinet that contained the computers, cops said.
In Fort Greene, burglars stole three computers from JHS 113 on Adelphi Street.
Staff noticed that the computers were missing from the locked classroom, which was not used for summer school, on Aug. 27 at around 8:30 am. Numerous people had keys to the room, leading police to wonder if crooks stole the goods from the junior high, which is between Myrtle and Park avenues.
Thieves also stole a $5,000 digital projector from MS 51 in Park Slope, cops said.
Police said that the crooks broke into the Fifth Avenue middle school, which is between Fourth and Fifth streets, sometime during the break and stole the projector, a bike and a DVD player.
The crime was discovered by custodians when they showed up for work on Aug. 28.
But parents — and principals — shouldn’t be worried about an academic crime wave.
“It is not uncommon for reports of ‘missing’ property to be filed upon the re-opening of facilities that had been closed for extended periods of time, and it is not uncommon for the ‘missing’ property to later be found safe at locations other than where they were thought to be last seen,” said NYPD spokesman Michael Collins.
In the end, it’s up to each school to secure its own valuables — and each principal to figure out the best way to get them back.
“Each school is responsible for making sure that the equipment is tightly locked,” said Department of Education spokeswoman Marge Feinberg.
