Vandals smash 50 windows at AlBrook school

Talk about it

Employees at a St. Louis County school arrived at work early Wednesday morning to find almost 50 windows — about a quarter of the glass throughout the building — smashed out.

Dave Phillips, undersheriff for the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office, said AlBrook School in Saginaw was badly vandalized sometime Tuesday night. Damage at the K-12 school was estimated to be in the tens of thousands of dollars and classes were canceled for the day.

“This wasn’t throwing one rock through one window,” Phillips said. “This was very malicious. There was very clear intent to cause a lot of destruction to this building.”

The incident is under investigation and authorities don’t know who caused the damage or even how the windows were smashed, Phillips said.

The Sheriff’s Office is seeking the public’s help to gather information.

“We take vandalism very seriously,” Phillips said. “It might be someone who kind of got their kicks out of this or thought it was funny, but this is felony-level damage to property we’re talking about.”

Charles Rick, superintendent of the St. Louis County school district, said the custodial staff is working hard to clean up the mess so school can resume today. The K-12 school has 365 students.

“Unfortunately, we had to close school for this,” he said, “but we will be back in business [today].”

Anyone with information about the incident can call the Sheriff’s Office at (218) 727-8770.

Tags: news, education, crime, albrook, saginaw