Thieves stole batteries from multiple Butler County school buses, state police say

BUTLER COUNTY, Pa. — Families in Cranberry Township are reacting to the news about a major theft impacting a large bus company in the area. State police said thieves are targeting school buses and stole the batteries off of 15 buses owned by ABC Transit and damaged several others.

“It’s terrible you just took 15 buses out of commission,” said Nathaniel Collins.

”It is a shame, just kind of wrong for anybody to do that,” said Kalea Chevalier

Seneca Valley is one of the many school districts that uses the bus company to get students around.

Police said in the middle of the night last Friday, they got a report of thieves trespassing where a big bus fleet is located along Saxonburg Road in Jefferson Township. The bus company said they are working with police on this and luckily no school district is impacted right now.

“I’d be pretty upset if it did affect my family and the reason they couldn’t go to school right now because someone stole batteries from school bus,” said Collins.

There are surveillance cameras on the property, but police say the thieves covered the cameras.

”They don’t want to get caught. They are going the extra mile to do what they want to do,” said Chevalier.

State police are investigating and said this is the first case in Butler County.

The value for the stolen batteries is $2,100.

“It just has to be how big the battery is that’s probably more profitable for them,” said Collins. “Now you’re having to pay for more security, pay for the repairs possibly more buses. It’s just a snowball effect.”Some local police departments said they are now doing extra patrols and keeping an extra eye on bus fleets in our area to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

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