Suspect sought in theft of radios

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2005 | 8:53 a.m.

Clark County School District Police are searching for a white Jeep Cherokee seen leaving the Arville Street transportation yard just prior to the discovery that 181 two-way radios had been stolen from school buses.

The value of the two-way radios, stolen over the weekend, is estimated at $90,500. The district's bus yards were also robbed in September and July of last year, with a total of 327 radios taken at a cost of $170,000.

The break-in at the Arville yard, located between Flamingo Road and Tropicana Avenue, comes exactly five years after 320 radios were stolen from school buses at three locked district yards. The replacement cost in that incident was $240,000.

In both the September 2000 thefts and last weekend's incident, the district's bus drivers had just finished their last day of work before a two-week break. Sources close to the investigation speculate that the thieves were familiar with the district's work schedule and knew there would be little activity at the 40-acre Arville yard over the weekend.

Frank Giordano, coordinator of vehicle maintenance for the district, said the priority now is to replace as many of the stolen radios as possible prior to the start of the new school year Aug. 29. If enough radios cannot be purchased in time, drivers will be given cellular phones, Giordano said.

The district was in the midst of upgrading security at all four bus yards when the thieves struck over the weekend, Giordano said. He declined to discuss the specifics of the upgrades.

School Police spokesman Darnell Couthen said officers conduct regular patrols of all district property, including the bus yards.

Clark County isn't the only school district to be targeted by thieves seeking two-way radios. A rash of similar thefts have plagued other states, including California.

In mid-April thieves stole 31 two-way radios worth $15,000 from Victor Elementary School District bus yard in San Bernardino. Over the same weekend thieves struck a Barstow bus yard, taking another 17 two-way radios.

It was the second hit in nine months for the San Bernardino bus yard, according to a report in the Victorville Daily Press. And in February a string of two-way radio thefts from school bus yards in central California's San Joaquin Valley attracted the attention of the California Justice Department, according to the Sierra Nevada Amateur Radio Society in Reno.

Thieves have also struck school bus yards in a variety of other California cities, including Madera, Clovis and Fresno.

"With these radios you can build a network where you can easily have a large number of vehicles in communication with each other and a central dispatcher," Giordano said.

While the district's risk management department will cover the replacement costs, Giordano said he's still frustrated.

"It's an impact on the district that none of us wanted to see, that's for sure," Giordano said. "We certainly would have liked to use that money somewhere else. It could have bought a lot of school supplies for classrooms."

Anyone with information regarding the stolen radios is asked to call School Police at 799-0228.