After a routine football practice on Oct.14, more than a dozen Cal High football players returned to the men’s team room to find that their cell phones, IDs, cash and other valuables had been stolen.

The theft took place from the team room between the start of practice around 3 p.m. and the end of practice at 5:30 p.m.,  said Abbas Hussein, the Cal High school resource officer. 

Although the exact value of stolen items is not known, Principal Megan Keefer confirmed that mostly cell phones, money, and AirPods were taken.

Cal’s standard operating procedure is that unless players are actively using a locker room, the doors are to remain locked.  The team room has four different entrances, but only one of them is regularly used by the football team. 

This entrance is located downstairs between the weight room and the dance room, near the gate separating campus from the San Ramon Olympic Pool.

“Even though all of the procedures may have been followed by locking up the main entrances, the perpetrators may have gained access by one of the other three exits which aren’t given as much attention,” Hussein said. “The leads we have followed up on have led to minimal evidence. Getting good quality fingerprints in locker rooms is near impossible.” 

Junior Darius Foster, a member of the varsity team, said he believes that some younger players let a guy into the locker room who said he was a transfer student. After returning to the team room after practice, many players who didn’t lock their backpacks and bags found their property missing.

“Phones got stolen along with AirPods and wallets,” said Foster, who avoided having his possessions stolen by storing them in his locker. 

Varsity running back and special teams coach Chris Torrey said that some stolen items had already been returned to players.

“I got my ID returned back to me, [but] my phone is still missing,” said junior Charlie Reynolds, who had his iPhone XR stolen. “The last I heard the police were still investigating the incident.”

 There are rumors circulating that the perpetrators were students from other high schools.  Keefer did not confirm these rumors.

“We would like to think that the people involved were not from other schools,but at this time it’s still under investigation and we are not sure who the perpetrators are, or what schools they came from,” Keefer said.

Keefer said that the school has taken steps to prevent such a theft from happening in the future. The school is installing surveillance cameras near the entrance to the locker rooms and applying for grant money to purchase items related to school safety, including more security cameras and better locks. 

Hussein said that property crimes in general are on the rise in San Ramon and throughout California because of the rapid growth of the area and state’s population and the fact that people carry more expensive items nowadays than in the past.

Hussein had some advice for students to prevent becoming victims of theft. 

“Make sure you always lock your items up, don’t bring unnecessary amounts of cash, and if you have extremely expensive items consider leaving them at home,” Hussein said.