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The majority of the Apple computers, hard drives and digital cameras stolen from James Campbell High School several weeks ago has been recovered, police said.
The video equipment and other video accessories were stolen July 21 from the Ewa Beach school’s video room. The stolen equipment was worth at least $20,000.
Police expect to return the computers and video equipment to school officials before the end of the week.
Police arrested a 31-year-old Waipahu man July 25 on suspicion of second-degree burglary and released him Friday, pending an investigation. Police believe the suspect may have had accomplices.
Naomi Takamori, Campbell principal, said the suspect was caught on the school’s video surveillance system. The videotape was turned over to police.
Takamori said campus security has been beefed up since the July 21 break-in. "We are now locking our perimeter gates," she said.
The school has been conducting an inventory to determine what is still missing.
Wayne Duevara, a vice principal at Campbell, said he didn’t know whether the recovery included an external hard drive that contained raw video footage and edited video footage for an educational video promoting safety on the roads for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.
The safety video — shot over the past nine months by Campbell students — was a collaborative effort with the Hawaii Bicycling League and Roberts Hawaii.
Roberts has offered a $2,500 reward to recover the video footage stored on the hard drive.
Both Duevara and Takamori acknowledged that security remains a problem because Campbell is "an open campus" that isn’t enclosed by a fence. Duevara said the problem is greater in the summer for all schools in the area when there are no classes.
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