Saratoga News

Vandals targed Redwood Middle School: broken windows, graffiti

The latest incident occurred over Thanksgiving holiday

$5,000 damage since June

By Michelle Alaimo

Vandals struck Redwood Middle School again over the Thanksgiving holiday. Since the middle of June, the school has suffered nearly $5,000 in damages from vandals who have broken 78 windows in a number of incidents, said Paul Tipton, Saratoga Union School District maintenance and operation manager. The latest incident occurred on Thanksgiving Day and involved the breaking of 17 windows.

The school has also had four separate graffiti incidents. In the latest, reported on Nov. 24, the words "White Power" were tagged on the cafeteria and boys' locker room buildings.

"Offensive graffiti has no part to play within this community," Principal Christopher Farmer said.

The latest window-breaking incident differs from past incidents in that this time no rocks were used to break the windows, Tipton said. Instead, he added, it appeared that the vandal or vandals used either a long pipe or a baseball bat to break the windows, because even high windows were broken.

The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department Westside Substation is working with the school to find out who is vandalizing the school and what can be done to stop them.

Farmer said the school has been keeping a photograph log of all of the graffiti and said the "White Power" graffiti appears to match other graffiti from past incidents. However, a sheriff's department official said the investigation is ongoing, and no links have been made yet between the most recent and past attacks.

Past incidents include tagging in August in which the letters "BSO" were scrawled on several walls around the school. In another incident, 21 windows were broken in one night on Aug. 11. Eight mailboxes in the surrounding area were also damaged. It is unknown whether any of the vandalism is being caused by students.

"[The Thanksgiving incident] makes about the ninth report I've filed, and we're getting nowhere," Tipton said. "It's extremely frustrating."

Not only is the vandalism frustrating, but it's also costly to the district.

All the money for repairs comes out of the SUSD's general fund, Tipton said. The district has insurance, but with a $2,000 deductible. And because no single incident has cost $2,000, all the money must come out of the district's pocket.

The vandalism is also inconvenient to students in damaged classrooms.

Farmer said students in the two recently vandalized classrooms were moved into another classroom while repairs were being made. Tipton said it took three people about five hours to fix the windows last week.

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