School District Weighs $2,500 Reward in Vandalism at Equipment Yard

Conejo Valley school officials are turning up the heat in an effort to nab vandals who slashed 90 tires, bashed gas pumps and generally wreaked havoc last month at a school equipment yard.

If a proposal is approved by the Conejo Valley Unified School District board tonight, officials plan to offer a $2,500 reward--through an anonymous tip line called WeTip--for information leading to the conviction of the perpetrators. Officials would circulate posters throughout the community with the offer.

“We’ve seen one or two tires slashed in the past, but nothing ever like this,” said Gary Mortimer, district assistant superintendent. “These people should be caught and prosecuted.”

Trustee Dolores Didio said paying rewards for tips wouldn’t be necessary in an ideal world.

“People would see a blatant wrong and come forward,” she said. “But realistically, sometimes people do need incentives to come forward.”

Board Chairman Richard F. Newman agreed that a reward is a means to get results.

“Whatever it takes to catch them,” he said.

He added that many callers do not want the reward, only the protection of reporting a crime anonymously. About 50% of the callers fall into that category, a WeTip spokeswoman said.

*

During the Feb. 24 spree, vandals poked knives through the tires on 25 trucks, tractors and trailers in the yard, smashed in several gas pumps and destroyed other maintenance yard property, racking up a $14,000 repair bill for the district.

“It’s the worst case of vandalism I’ve seen,” said Bret Breton, safety coordinator for the Ventura County Schools Self-Funding Authority. “It’s crippling. It shuts the whole department down.”

The authority contracts with the WeTip line for the Conejo district and all 21 other school districts in the county through its supplemental insurance carrier, Coregis.

WeTip, a nonprofit Southern California company with 400 schools as clients nationwide, accepts calls through a staffed 24-hour line. All tips are anonymous, with the caller given a case number for the crime and a three-part code name.

WeTip answers the telephone, “This is the WeTip hotline. Please do not give your name.”

WeTip tracks each case through arrest and courts, with the reward paid on conviction. Rewards of $1,000 or less are paid through the post office, with the anonymous caller presenting only the case number and the code name for identification.

For larger amounts, the payoff is made at a bank of the caller’s choosing, using the same format that requires only the code name and case number for identification.

Most districts offer a standing reward of up to $1,000 through WeTip and post generic fliers at schools for information leading to the arrest and conviction of people who commit crimes against the districts, bring weapons on campus or in any way threaten the security of schools.

Coregis pays those rewards.

*

Rewards of greater amounts, such as the one the Conejo district is offering, are paid by the districts. Conejo Unified would post the $2,500 reward in a type of escrow account with WeTip.

The WeTip program augments, but does not replace, the local police anonymous phone line, Crime Stoppers, school officials said.

Mortimer said that in the past, there have been other acts of vandalism and batteries stolen from vehicles at the district maintenance yard in Newbury Park, which is unfenced and unprotected. School buses, which are not owned by the district, are kept at a different yard and have not had vandalism problems.

But the most recent vandalism, he said, seemed particularly egregious.

“It was malicious,” he said. “But all vandalism is malicious.”

Anyone with information on the crime should call the WeTip hotline at 1-800-78-CRIME.