Parents and staff at the Millbrae Nursery School are still reeling from a brutal, violent vandalism attack that included what they called a “ritualistic slaying of animals.”
San Mateo county Sheriff investigators continue trying to figure out exactly what happened that led to five chickens kept by the school to be killed over the past weekend.
The school has been in the same location for 82 years and staff members say they have never seen anything like that before.
Sometime from late Friday night to Sunday night, a person, or persons kicked through a side gate and broke windows.
According to the director, five chickens were cut open and killed, in a ritualistic fashion.
“It wasn’t as if they left them in place,” Brigidan Bogni-Rodriguez said. “They took them all out, lined them up and you could see where they were cut open.”
The scene was so gruesome that the school chose not to tell the 48 students what happened.
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The children, ranging in age from 2 to 5 years old, were told the coop was broken and the chickens were taken away while repairs were being made.
“The way it was done, like the way they were killed and lined up in a way, and gutted out,” said parent Roland Yrani. “It’s scary, it’s like, who would do that? Who could be sick enough to do something like this?”
Sheriff investigators have confirmed the breaking and entering but are still trying to determine if the killings were done by a human or by wild animals.
They say the animals’ bodies were scattered around the lawn, but Bogni-Rodriguez believes it was a crime by a person and that makes it difficult for anyone there to feel safe.
“The fear is not only are we devastated by the violation of our program, but this person is out there and who knows what will happen next?” he said.
The school board and parents met Monday and plan more meeting this week to discuss how to increase safety.
The sheriff’s department is helping them with that and plan extra patrols in the neighborhood.
