The Dr. Willella Howe-Waffle House & Medical Museum in Santa Ana was broken into late Saturday night. The perpetrator was caught before anything could be stolen, but a lot of damage was done..
Guy Ball, of the Santa Ana Historical Preservation Society writes, "...A drug addict broke in and was searching for stuff. Our security alarm went off and the police responded. ...They caught the guy in the house and he evidentially cut himself up pretty badly [on broken glass]... The house was ransacked before he was caught... and the glass in many cases was broken without cause. For instance, the front and top heavy glass panels to two of our big display cases were smashed in (leaving blood spatters on the display items), several dining room and medical office display units had their front glass broken, and a couple lawyer's cases had glass broken as well.
"In addition he pulled the old medical instruments in some of the cases and spread them around the house (figure that one out). Upstairs, he ransacked closets and built-in drawers..
"...We're looking at quite a bit of repair and cleanup costs (probably in the $2,000 to $4,000 range).
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"We do consider ourselves lucky. None of our computers or other electronic devices were damaged or taken, and there wasn't a lot of hard damage to our furniture and cases that can't be repaired with new glass and/or some wood glue. But we do feel pretty violated, as any victim of a home burglary can attest to."
You can see more photos of the destruction on the Howe-Waffle photostream on Flickr. It's all bad, but the historic documents spattered with blood bother me the most..
What a truly crappy thing to do to anyone, let alone a non-profit group that benefits the whole community. This was just destruction for the sake of destruction. I recommend drawing and quartering for this guy.
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Anyway,... If you've ever considered donating money to the Santa Ana Historical Preservation Society, they could probably really use it now.
