Ripping the catalytic converter off a school bus has to be the automotive equivalent of stealing candy from a baby. A Northwest Indiana school district was thrown into chaos on Tuesday after thieves stole the catalytic converters from 21 school buses.
Staff at the Michigan City Area Schools Transportation Department discovered that the catalytic converters were missing while preparing the school bus for their morning routes around the small city, 45 miles east of Chicago. According to WFLD, the police were called at 5:25 a.m. Investigators believe that the perpetrators got into the lot through an adjacent wooded area. It’s clear that law enforcement isn’t taking this heist lightly. Marty Corley, Michigan City’s police chief, said:
“You affect kids, you affect families, you affect teachers, you affect the city. When we do get the suspect or suspects in custody, then we will assess from there, but we will be looking at the highest possible charges for this crime.”
Other school districts stepped up to provide buses
It will take some time for Michigan City’s school buses to get replacement catalytic converters. Thankfully, other school districts in Indiana rallied to make sure that students had buses to get to school. Districts in Le Porte, New Prairie, Union Mills and Warsaw offered vehicles for Michigan City to reopen schools on Wednesday. Mark Fick, Warsaw’s director of transportation, told WSBT:
“You decided to jump into action and provide help to the school so tell us why you did that. Well, it was a tragedy and you got to get the kids to school. So, I called up my superintendent and I didn’t even finish my sentence and he’s like yup give them what they need. So, we jumped into action. I got a hold of their transportation director, Sue, and she was basically crying on the phone. She’s like whatever you can give us is what she told me and they just now picked them up.”
While criminals look at the catalytic converter and see an opportunity for easy money, there is always a victim left without transportation. No criminal mastermind would risk the heat from gambling the education of an entire school district and costing taxpayers thousands of dollars. However, converter thieves aren’t always the sharpest tools in the shed. Last year, a group of thieves in Detroit looked like Larry, Moe and Curly while breaking into a used car lot. They sawzalled their way through a gate lock, took just one converter, then crashed their gateway car. One fleeing suspect fell out of the car and dropped his gun. If they didn’t have warrants for their arrest, they would be signed to a Three Stooges reboot already.
