By Lauren Cosca ’15

This past Saturday, a group of five young girls who attend Sherwood broke into Just Puppies in Rockville and took part in a robbery. The girls did not take any money from the several cash registers in the store, but instead took every single puppy in the store.

Arriving early the next morning, store manager Bill Stevens entered the room where the puppies were kept and found that all of the cages were empty. He continued to check the cash registers and the safe in the back of the store, and both were untouched. Upon finding several pairs of Ugg boots, iPhone chargers and empty cups of Starbucks coffee, Stevens called the police who found a broken window in the back of the store. It was later confirmed that this was how the girls gained entrance into the store.

The police immediately opened a tip line for anyone with information pertaining to the break-in. Calls flooded in from many concerned citizens. Hours later, the police learned that multiple teenage girls in the area were posting pictures to their Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts of themselves playing with and feeding “these 30 adorable puppies we just got from Rockville. #Cute #Free.” Police officers began an investigation shortly afterward and brought in each girl for questioning. It wasn’t long until they began to confess. “They’re just so cute. If I didn’t, like, take them home to take selfies with, I would, like, die,” said a freshman whose name will remain anonymous.

The girls have not been formally charged with any crimes yet, and there is still some confusion as to why the girls did not take any money from the store. An investigator on the case is pushing for strong, intensive therapy for the girls, and a psychologist consulting for the police department says there may be some serious underlying psychological issues that the girls suffer from that led them to rob the store.

None of the girls have a criminal record or has ever been in trouble before, except for one with an unrelated assault charge. “We didn’t do anything bad, the dogs are just so, like, adorable that like we had to take them, you know?” said a sophomore. “I just thought that, like, I could get like soooo many likes [on Instagram] if I posted a picture of, like, me with all these cute puppies. And I did. It was, like, totally worth it.”