Music calms the savage beast, or so it has been written. Could that explain the recent rash of tuba thefts from Southern California high schools. I mean who steals a person’s tuba for crying out loud?

As Southern California awoke to the wreckage from a recent massive windstorm, music teacher Ruben Gonzalez Jr. was assessing a different sort of devastation in his band room at South Gate High School.

Thieves had pried open a door and torn the room apart while hunting for a specific instrument. “All they took were tubas,” Gonzalez said. Losses included an upright concert tuba and a silver sousaphone — or marching-band tuba — worth a combined $13,000.

Several weeks earlier, band members at Centennial High School in Compton experienced a similar shock when they found that eight sousaphones were missing.

And last week, burglars broke into Huntington Park High School and spirited away the school’s last tuba, according to band instructor Fernando Almader. A silver Jupiter tuba had been stolen earlier in the school year.

Why the Tubas?

Those are just the latest in what police and music instructors are describing as a rash of unsolved tuba thefts at high schools in southeast Los Angeles County. The thefts, according to band leaders, were probably spurred by Southern California’s banda music craze, as well as the high prices the brass instruments fetch on the black market. A high-quality tuba can cost well more than $5,000, but even an old, dented tuba can sell for as much as $2,000.

Strapped for cash and running low on school spirit, victimized bands were scrambling to replace their instruments before attending Saturday’s 38th-annual Marching Band and Drill Team Championships at East Los Angeles College.

The targeted schools fall within various city and school police jurisdictions, so the total number of missing tubas remains unknown. However, music instructors have reported the theft of scores of instruments over the last year.

One pundit claimed the thefts are part of metal theft. It is theft pure and simple and not only is it costing our schools precious instruments and dollars, but also heartache and grieving. I sure they catch those responsible and get them to an online stop theft class while they spend a few days in jail.