As if to bridge the excitement of the Homecoming football game and dance; Saturday, Sept. 23 at 2:00 a.m. a group of boys broke into DHS, vandalizing the gym and stealing from the construction site.

Security tapes show footage of the group -approximately five to six young men – sneaking around the school. They were seen climbing up a ladder to the roof of the Freshmen Academy – a dangerous construction zone – roaming the school, and ending the night in the main gym.

“There was a fire extinguisher left inside the main gym with the powder from it left all over, some of it still floating in the air since it takes a while for it to settle down to the floor… ” says head custodian Billie Anderson who had to be called into DHS at 2:30 a.m. to clean up the area. “The whole floor was all white,” he continues, “the entire gym was covered in powder.”

When the group initially snuck in, the school alarm system, United Alarm, was triggered and the police were called, according to Principal Dan Donovan. The alarm company then called Anderson to unlock the doors of the school.

When Anderson arrived at approximately 2:50 a.m., he was greeted by police officers, and the fire marshall – as the chemicals from the fire extinguisher also set off the fire alarms – but no students were around at the time any of them arrived.

“Mr. Anderson had to come in for four hours to clean up the fire extinguisher that went off in the gym and repair the number of banners that were ripped down,” says Donovan.

Aside from the stress and frustration the break-in has caused, it is also costing the school a good sum of money. Anderson and his assisting custodians had to have compensation for their labor – especially due to the painfully early hours of the work – and payment was required for the repairs that needed to be made to the banners.

More motion sensors are being added throughout the campus and more security cameras are being added in the construction zones and around the school to prevent future break-ins, both of which are also a monetary issue, according to Donovan.

Though the culprits have not been facially identified through the video footage, the police are in the middle of an investigation to discover who the group of boys are by analyzing the footage further and analyzing the cars and their license plates that were in the parking lot during the time of the event.

Despite the magnitude of the break-in itself and the money it has cost DHS both in damages and labor, Anderson and Donovan agree that the most upsetting facet of it is that the group was comprised of students.

“I was disappointed that kids would break into the building; who would think that young people would be out at 2:30 in the morning damaging their own space?” Anderson says.

Donovan agrees that his first reaction was shock and sadness that students would choose to vandalize their own school.

He says, “This is not what we as Hatters stand for, and while we may not have everything this school needs, there should be a certain amount of pride in being a Danbury Hatter.”