Thieves swipe Baldwin High bear mascot

Thieves took a stuffed bear mascot that had been on display in a commons area at Baldwin Senior High School for years and replaced it with a nattily dressed skeleton, police and school officials said Tuesday.

A district spokeswoman said the Memorial Day weekend heist is assumed to be a prank, but police view the incident as a burglary because the thieves broke in through a second-story window at the high school, whose mascot is the Bruin.

"Yes, we do have a missing mascot," district spokeswoman Cristina Schmohl said. "We're assuming it's a senior prank. And there is a little touch of humor in it." Someone entered the school on Ethel T. Kloberg Drive and removed the item from a display case, replacing it with a 3-foot skeleton clad in a tuxedo, police said.

Schmohl said nothing was vandalized but added: "This is the mascot and he needs to go back home." Police ask anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 800-244-TIPS. Calls remain confidential, police said.