High School Janitor Busted For Property Theft

SPOKANE — A longtime District 81 employee is in jail accused of stealing thousands of dollars of property from Lewis and Clark High School.

LCHS janitor Dewayne Gomez is accused of stealing a teacher’s iPod and two school video cameras. A search warrant confirms that police searched Gomez’s house and also found three school walkie-talkies, a cordless screwdriver and some traffic cones that all belong to District 81.

Gomez, a longtime district employee for more than 30 years, has been the janitor at Lewis and Clark for more than 20 years.

The search warrant adds that a teacher caught Gomez stealing his iPod and then Gomez admitted to police stealing a couple video cameras. He said he was having a tough time in November and that he lost his house and the guilt had been eating at him.

Detectives found he pawned one of the video cameras in January.

“It’s just one of these things, they’re great people. They’re decent citizens but for whatever reason they come across hard luck they just take step over and once do not get caught more easier to do it another time,” Officer Bill Hager with the Spokane Police Department said.

Gomez is now in jail and on paid administrative leave from the district.

The district compiled a list of all the items missing from Lewis and Clark in the past couple years; that list includes 12 digital cameras, a computer, a fog machine and five classroom projectors. The district isn’t alleging that Gomez took all of those items but they are searching for them.

If it’s determined Gomez stole any of the additional missing items he could be facing more charges.