Group that helps youth is burglarized

Thursday, Feb. 5, 2004 | 11:02 a.m.

A nonprofit group that helps young people who are on the street or down and out was burglarized Tuesday night, its director said.

The Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth, a nonprofit organization with more than 100 members statewide, lost three laptop computers in the burglary, Director Kathleen Boutin said.

The crime will set the group back at least $10,000, Boutin said, as it must replace the computers and set up a security system. At the same time client and donor data was probably not lost, as they are probably on other computers or on paper, Garrett Dangerfield, chairman of the board for the nonprofit group, said.

Officer Shane Lewis of the Henderson Police Department said the crime's motive was unclear. Lewis said the crime "does not appear to be tied to prior incidents," referring to several doctor's offices and banks that had computers and other articles stolen in recent weeks.

Lewis also said the "investigators don't believe identity theft was any motive" in Tuesday's crime.

The organization has started a drop-in center and the "Safe Place" program at Terrible Herbst gas stations in recent years. These and other programs will not be affected by the crime, but Boutin said she was disappointed.

"For obvious reasons, desperate people do desperate things. Whoever would rob a charity must be desperate," she said.