An Irving nonprofit is trying to recover an estimated $20,000 in stolen tools and equipment after thieves broke into its new facility on the same night as its grand opening celebration.<\/p>\n
The DFW Curling Club celebrated the opening of its 30,000-square-foot facility Sunday after years of fundraising and months of work by members to get the space ready.<\/p>\n
But the celebration took a devastating turn when surveillance cameras captured an intruder on the building’s porch just 30 minutes after members locked up for the night.<\/p>\n
Club President Brigitte Minucci said a member first discovered signs of the break-in Monday morning.<\/p>\n
Food had been thrown around, papers and gloves were scattered, and doors throughout the facility were left open. Members soon discovered that tools stored in a back ice shed were missing, along with electronics including an iPad, speakers and a computer.<\/p>\n
Surveillance footage revealed a break-in that lasted several hours, showing a man walking throughout the facility wearing merchandise taken from the curling club’s pro shop. Another person eventually joined him.<\/p>\n
Minucci estimated the losses at $20,000, with most of that amount involving power tools belonging to club members who spent months preparing the facility for its opening.<\/p>\n
The thieves also damaged a trophy belonging to the club.<\/p>\n
Minucci said, \u201cThis is our USA National Curling trophy and they broke it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For members of the nonprofit, which relies on member funding and spent years raising money to secure its own space, the theft was especially painful.<\/p>\n
Minucci described the emotional whiplash of celebrating a long-awaited milestone only to discover the damage the following morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI joked today, I said we cried when we got on the ice, and then apparently we cried the next day, too,\u201d Minucci said.<\/p>\n
Irving police are investigating the break-in.<\/p>\n
Minucci said she hoped evidence left behind, including smudged handprints on a door she said the thieves forced open, would help investigators identify those responsible.<\/p>\n
But her biggest priority is recovering the stolen tools so members can continue their work at the facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to keep moving forward and right now we can’t,\u201d Minucci said.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Irving nonprofit is trying to recover an estimated $20,000 in stolen tools and equipment after thieves broke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,1266],"class_list":["post-480614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-irving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}