Española School District administrators and law enforcement officials have scarce details on how unidentified thieves caused about $500,000 in damage last fall scavenging for copper at the old Sombrillo Elementary.
About $60,000 in copper wire and fixtures were stolen from the abandoned school over two incidents that took place in September and October, according to minutes of an October District security committee meeting.
“Someone gained access to the school and ripped out all the copper fittings and gutted everything on the walls,” District Projects Manager Paul Salas told the committee. “The damage was extensive.”
The District plans to demolish most of the buildings in the old school, but most of the damage from the break-ins was to a newer, six-classroom wing the District planned to leave standing and sell along with the rest of the old campus. Salas said he is currently preparing bids for an appraisal of the property.
Repairing damage to the new classrooms would cost at least $500,000, Salas said. The District now plans to demolish those buildings along with the rest of the abandoned school, he said.
At any other District school, insurance would have covered the price of repairs. But because the site has been abandoned since mid-2006, when Sombrillo Elementary moved to its new facility, the old school is no longer covered by insurance, according to Kevin Sovereign, regional claims manager for CCMSI, the District’s insurer.
“They do have liability coverage.” Sovereign said.
The liability coverage does not cover theft or vandalism to the building, only injuries to anyone who enters the building, Sovereign said.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department provided a police report for the first incident, which was reported Sept. 4 and took place sometime in the week before that.
The report lists 350 feet of copper tubing, 50 feet of copper wire, five door handles and a stainless steel sink stolen during that incident for a total of $3,600. The report also lists $1,300 in damage to windows and ceiling tiles.
Deputies were unable to dust for fingerprints “due to the scene being compromised” and had no other information on suspects, the report states.
But the most serious of the two incidents took place in late October, Salas said. Then, the thieves tore down entire sections of the building’s ceilings and gouged feet of drywall from all the building’s classrooms and hallways. While removing copper wire from electrical panels, the thieves cut live power lines, Salas said.
“I’m surprised we didn’t find someone dead,” Salas said.
Undersheriff Robert Garcia said dispatch logs show deputies responded to the incident, but did not take a report.
“What happened there is the custodians on the second call stated they had already reported the incident, so they didn’t take a report,” Garcia said.
The District did not complete an internal incident report for the second incident, either, because it was unable to get a report from the Department for either incident, Salas said.
Garcia said the case has since been assigned to a detective for further investigation, but provided no further details. Salas said deputies visited the school Tuesday to photograph the damage and asked the District to prepare an appraisal of the damage.
Until a month before the first incident, the old school had been under the supervision of Arnold Velasquez, a former dispatcher, who lives on District property. But his home — and supervision — was moved to the new Sombrillo campus two weeks before the first incident.