On July 13, 2015, at approximately 11:30 a.m., the Mayer School District School Resource Officer (SRO), a Yavapai County Sheriff’s deputy, was contacted by the principal of Mayer Elementary School. The principal told the SRO that during the past weekend, 4 juvenile suspects with skateboards climbed onto the roof of the school and shut down all the AC units.
The suspects also turned off 2 main AC units connected to a large refrigerator/freezer resulting in the $500 loss of school food. There was also damage to rain gutters and brackets holding electrical conduit piping had been pulled away their wall mounts. Unfortunately, the school had just been painted last week and would now need major touch-up work. The principal was able to observe a majority of the criminal activity on school surveillance video.
According to maintenance personnel, the suspects had turned off a total of 35 AC units requiring the work and expense of a private HVAC company to check for damage and insure the units were safe to restart. The labor and associated costs for all the work/damage involved in this incident was already exceeding $1000 dollars.
The SRO reviewed the security video and did not immediately recognize any of the suspects as Mayer School District students. Using contacts within the school and around the community developed over the course of duties as an SRO, the deputy was able to speak with a student who had been seen off campus with the four suspects the day of the incident.
Upon speaking with this person, the deputy was able to identify and eventually locate all 4 suspects at homes in Mayer and Prescott Valley the following day. Two of the suspects, ages 16 and 14, were from Prescott Valley and 2 others, ages 14 and 11, were visiting from Las Vegas, NV. Three of the suspects had a relative who lived in the vicinity of the school.
The SRO interviewed 2 of the juvenile suspects, also brothers, who were from Las Vegas and visiting in Mayer. Their mother was present to hear the details. These suspects also confirmed the identity of the two remaining suspects who were interviewed later that day. All 4 admitted involvement and charged with Criminal Trespassing, Aggravated Vandalism and referred to the Juvenile Court for prosecution. All the skateboards matching those seen in the video were located during follow-up interviews as further verification of their involvement.