Calling All Cars! It's the Case of the Hot Hamster

by Tom Henderson (Subscribe to Tom Henderson's posts) Mar 11th 2010 4:32PM

Categories: Preschoolers, In The News, Weird But True, Pets

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Seriously, who steals a hamster? Credit: knittingskwerlgurl, Flickr

Check the pawn shops. Has anyone tried to fence a hot hamster?
Preschoolers at Staten Island's Eden II School for Children with Autism showed up for class Monday and found Star, their pet hamster, was gone. Cage and all.
Brace yourself. It gets worse. Skippy the Sock Puppet is missing, too. A half dozen rubber duckies are also unaccounted for.

Police tell the New York Daily News the thieves apparently broke in through a back window.

"Whoever did it was really pathetic," the school's executive director, Joanne Gerenser, tells the Daily News. "One of the students said to me 'I miss the sock puppet.' "

The paper reports thieves also made off with $5,000 in electronics, including three laptops, two Nintendo Wii systems, a Microsoft Xbox and all its games, as well as a camera.
"When you're stealing games and toys, you're stealing from the kids," Gerenser tells the newspaper.

Meanwhile, the Daily News reports a new hamster has been donated to the school as teachers and administrators raise money for the safe return of Star and Skippy.

Gerenser tells the paper, one child has had trouble sleeping following the crime.

"One of the students was now thinking that everything was going to be taken," Gerenser tells the Daily News. "She was afraid to take her stuff into school."

Related: Burglar Feels Guilty After Stealing Diamond Earrings, Returns Them

Comments (13)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

MISS PETA 3-14-2010 @ 7:28AM

DESPERATE & PATHETIC.

BTDT 3-14-2010 @ 12:14PM

The cops will have to put a tail on that hampster.

LPStarChaser 3-14-2010 @ 9:44AM

This almost sounds like some student bully and friends who want it all for themselves and to (Hades) with what anyone else thinks. I am reminded of "Angelica" on "Rugrats"

May this pathetic person be caught and returned to a semi-permanent kindergarten. That is the way this person's mind seems to work.

MISS PETA: This is a troubled individual. I wonder what is going through their mind. An older person with an infantile mind.

cheriturn3 3-14-2010 @ 9:46AM

People, they just don't think. There is a chain reaction. These kids need consistancy in thier lives. something that seems so small as a puppet isn't that way to a child with autism. That could be his best friend and the loss of it could effect him/her for the rest of thier life.

steve 3-14-2010 @ 10:43AM

These schools need to have a big safe in each room so they can lock everything up when they leave. that might help.

rtrim29 3-14-2010 @ 10:58AM

Some people are just too sick. Poor kids. They already have to go through so much.

Bubba 3-14-2010 @ 11:49AM

Maybe it was a hungry and cold boa constrictor.

luis 3-14-2010 @ 11:57AM

Damn colored boys !

David99948 3-14-2010 @ 12:21PM

Yes, of course they are stealing from the kids. However, the morons who stole from them, could care less. I suppose stealing to support your drug habit takes prescedence over common sense. (which no one seems to have these days) When are people going to wake up and stop with the stupid drugs?? The burned-out brains of millions of drug users (includes a hefty percentage of our youth) will someday attempt to run this country. Scary.