Three men have been held fol­low­ing a break-in at the Suc­cess Laven­tille Sec­ondary School yes­ter­day.

Com­mend­ing po­lice of­fi­cers for their quick re­sponse in ap­pre­hend­ing the sus­pects aged 16, 19 and 21 and re­cov­er­ing the stolen items which in­clud­ed sev­er­al lap­tops used for on­line learn­ing, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly con­demned the un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent.

The rob­bery re­port­ed­ly oc­curred around 4.30 am on Jan­u­ary 16.

Of­fi­cers of the Port-of-Spain Task Force and the In­ter-Agency Task Force re­spond­ed to a call that peo­ple were seen on the school’s com­pound and up­on ar­rival, they found the three sus­pects re­mov­ing sev­er­al items.

Sgt Pino along with PCs Chin­pire and Madeira and oth­ers were able to re­trieve three HP lap­tops: four Leno­vo lap­tops; one 42-inch flat-screen tele­vi­sion; one smart doc­u­ment cam­era; one Canon print­er; one HP print­er; one surge pro­tec­tor; sev­en Flow wa­ter bot­tles; two Lasko fans; and a quan­ti­ty of as­sort­ed sta­tionery.

The sus­pects were de­tained and are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a Port-of-Spain mag­is­trate on Mon­day.

Mean­while, Gads­by-Dol­ly said school of­fi­cials had been co­op­er­at­ing with in­ves­ti­ga­tors to iden­ti­fy and re­turn the items to the school in the short­est pos­si­ble time.

In­di­cat­ing Suc­cess Laven­tille Sec­ondary School was one of those in­sti­tu­tions where in­creased se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures have been im­ple­ment­ed due to its lo­ca­tion in a high-risk crime dis­trict, the min­is­ter added, “This school has a greater lev­el of se­cu­ri­ty pro­vid­ed through the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance and Train­ing Ser­vices than the av­er­age school is pro­vid­ed with, based on pre­vi­ous in­ci­dents which would have oc­curred there over the years.”

In­di­cat­ing the MOE was await­ing a re­port from the NMTS on the in­ci­dent, Gads­by-Dol­ly as­sured, “Schools con­tin­ue to be pro­vid­ed with se­cu­ri­ty to se­cure their plants and equip­ment since their phys­i­cal clo­sure.”

Ed­u­ca­tion fa­cil­i­ties at the pre-school, pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary lev­els have been closed since March 16, 2020, af­ter the coun­try’s first COVID-19 case was di­ag­nosed.

The first term for the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2020/2021 spanned Sep­tem­ber 1, 2020, to De­cem­ber 11, 2020.

The sec­ond term be­gan on Jan­u­ary 4 and is due to close off on March 26.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has pre­vi­ous­ly said a de­ci­sion to bring out Stan­dard Five pupils at the pri­ma­ry lev­el, and Forms Four to Six stu­dents at the sec­ondary lev­el in this aca­d­e­m­ic term would be de­pen­dent on the COVID-19 sta­tis­tics dur­ing the Christ­mas and new year pe­ri­ods.