At Valle Verde Children’s Center, a day care center at Valle Verde Elementary School, the staff came in on a Monday morning and found their three rabbits were missing. The rabbits had been in a secure hutch, and the hutch was behind a chain-link fence. Yet they were gone. Stolen. Along with their water bottles.

Had wild animals eaten the bunnies? Wild animals wouldn’t take water bottles.

The Children’s Center went public with the tragedy. They called in the police, and soon K9 Officer Patrick Duggan was on the case.

Day care kids vividly described the rabbits to Officer Duggan. Duchess, brown and white, the friendliest of bunnies. Buster, black and white, and named after SF Giants catcher Buster Posey. Ginger, Buster’s sister, who’s light brown (her coat looks agouti to me, but she’s not my rabbit), and sometimes bites. And growls.

Were the thieves going to put the stolen rabbits to work?

Local TV interviewed bereft children. The kids were upset. One girl said she couldn’t sleep at all.

They made signs and put them up on the fence: “Please Bring Back Our Bunnies” and “We miss our bunnies… 🙁

And Valle Verde people were all over Facebook with their outrage.

Also, Officer Duggan reviewed surveillance tapes. Which showed five teenagers, girls and boys, hopping the fence and stealing the rabbits. The principal of Northgate High was able to i.d. all five. “We followed up with appropriate disciplinary consequences once the facts became clear,” he said.

On Tuesday, Ginger (notice it was the biter?) was returned along with some children’s books and a note of apology:

Sorry, we feel bad about taking them from the kids. Good intensions only. bad idea. The other bunnys ran away. Never will happen again. 🙁

–Bunny theifs

From the look of the note, it originally said “The other bunny ran away” and someone inserted an “s” to make it “other bunnys.” I don’t want to leave you in suspense, with your hearts in your mouths, about the other bunnies, so I’ll defer the apology analysis. On Wednesday, two “very remorseful” girls appeared with Buster and apologized in person. Later that day, another rabbit rustler returned Duchess, (sweetest of bunnies).

REUNITED!

Or press-gang them into battle between Greece and Romania?

Anyway, the note is a good apology (which needs editing), except for the big old lie about the other bunnies running away. I assume the thieves split the swag. The first rabbit-remitter, who brought back Ginger, seems to have been covering up for the kids who still had Buster and Duchess (most angelic of bunnies). A lie which was exposed when those kids in turn coughed up the lagomorphs in their custody.

The lie really undercuts the remorse. Teen honor dictates that you not rat out your friends, but no, it does not dictate that you tell a falsehood that allows your friends to enjoy their ill-gotten rabbits in safety. Remember how it was a “bad idea” to take them from the kids?

Shockingly, the San Jose Mercury News ran a story on this event with a url referring to it as a “bunny caper.” Way to glamorize crime!

This is not the end for the miscreants. No charges will be pressed. However, the culpable students were commanded to go back to the day care center later, apologize to the little kids, and help fix up the rabbit area. The director of the day care center, Christine Muller, told the San Jose Mercury News, “You can make something right, and that’s the lesson I want the kids to get.”