WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah — Three people were caught on video vandalizing a West Valley City elementary school and stealing several items, including a safe and musical instruments. School officials are now asking for help in identifying the suspects.
Surveillance video shows the suspects walking through the halls of Esperanza Elementary School early Saturday.
The school community is devastated after hearing its popular mariachi band room was the target of a break in.
"Through the music we can learn so much about our own culture because music talks about our history, our emotions, our families," said principal Eulogio Alejandre.
The principal said the suspects stole instruments and a safe.
"I noticed they had broken a window right in the hallway," he said. "They had entered the mariachi room and smashed a lot of the memorabilia the teacher had here, they had taken guitars, violins, and trumpets, and we did notice they had taken a safe."
Some of the items are considered irreplaceable in the minds of those who used the mariachi room.
"it was really sad for me, they stole my computer that we recorded songs with the mariachi kids and that computer has more than 200 songs and the kids worked so hard," explained band teacher Allan Moreno.
While the school hopes to identify those in the video, they don't want them to be punished, they want them to learn
"They appear to be young kids in the community," said principal Eulogio Alejandre. "We don't necessarily search for them to be punished, we want them to learn there's a better way. We're a school, we want to educate the community, so we want them to be caught so they can be redirected in the right direction and can have fulfilling lives in the future."
Anyone with information on the suspects is urged to contact the West Valley City Police Department.
"This is an independent charter school, it belongs to the community, and the community runs the school, so really it was a crime not against the building, not against the room, but it was against the community," said Alejandre.
