BILOXI — At least 20 bags of toys collected as part of the Salvation Army toy drive are missing after a break-in at the school where they were stored, but officials hope they are just misplaced, not stolen.
Maj. Terry Ray told the Sun Herald that during the second day of Angel Tree toy distribution, at least 20 bags of toys couldn’t be found when parents came through the line at Nichols Elementary School to pick them up for their children’s Christmas.
Police responded to a burglar alarm at the school Friday night and found doors wedged open. Officers could not determine if anything was missing.
Ray said the bags in question were filled and checked by multiple volunteers.
Officials are using nine classroom at Nichols to sort and store the bags of toys, and Ray said the filled bags may have been misplaced.
“When you fill 9,000 bags, human error could confuse it,” he said. “I can’t say with 100 percent certainty that those bags were filled or not, but I also can’t say that things weren’t disturbed in the rooms.”
Ray’s concern with the missing toys is that of the almost 10,000 applications in the six Coastal counties, 3,000 angels were not adopted.
Salvation Army officials spent $15,000 on additional toys earlier Friday to continue filling the applications, he said.
The Salvation Army suspended its distribution Friday evening when poor lighting in the parking lot and an unusually long wait caused people to begin pushing toward the door. It resumed Saturday and began at 9 a.m. today.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.