Pete Rodman/Daily News>Police believe the burglars entered through a window at the Boys & Girls Club of Bowling Green.

Nearly 200 children had to find somewhere else to go after school Monday when a burglary shut down the Boys & Girls Club of Bowling Green.

The club reopened today.

Club Unit Director Abbey Kitchens and Executive Director Pam McIntyre immediately noticed when they opened the front door Monday morning at the 206 Scott Way facility that someone had ransacked the front office, McIntyre said.

Both women backed out of the building and called police about 9:30 a.m.

Thieves entered the building through an 11.5-inch double-paned window in the club’s cafeteria area. Shattered glass was scattered on the floor and many of the club’s rooms were ransacked. Vandals also scrawled an expletive-filled message on a table in McIntyre’s office. They turned on all the center’s lights and rifled through filing cabinets before taking off with electronic goods and money.

The thieves also broke into a wooden concession stand at the club that holds donated toys that children buy with their club bucks. Club bucks are given out as part of the club’s reward system.

Within hours of the burglary report, the Bowling Green Police Department arrested Roger Mitchell III, 18, of Bowling Green, according to BGPD spokesman Officer Ronnie Ward. Police continued to look for two juveniles who will also be charged with the break-in and thefts.

The burglary upset Kitchens and McIntyre, who were concerned about where the children who ordinarily spend their afternoons at the club would go Monday. They had to close the club for the day so they could clean up the mess left by the thieves.

“We’ve been a safe place for kids to go in the afternoon and summers,” Kitchens said. “It’s really heartbreaking.”

No one has ever broken into the club before.

The building’s Comstar alarm system, which is supposed to notify the police of break-ins, failed to activate, McIntyre said. As of press time today, McIntyre had not received an answer from the alarm company about why the system failed.

Police found and returned most of the property that was stolen during the break-in.

“Of course I’m excited about it,” McIntyre said. “We’ve got some of our things back. It just makes us feel safer, and we’re able to open the club up today. We’re just glad. The police did a really good job.”

The club is still missing van keys and a laptop, McIntyre said. Unlike car keys made 20 years ago, keys now are electronic and costly to replace.

“That’s what we’re stressing about this morning, because that’s how we go get the kids from school,” McIntyre said about the van keys. “It puts us in a big bind.”

When police found the cache of stolen goods Monday, they found some keys, but none of them belongs to the club, McIntyre said.

Mitchell is charged with two counts of third-degree burglary and is lodged in the Warren County Regional Jail. One of the burglary counts is for another break-in near the club.