During Friday night’s downpour, Debra Perkins’ daughter neglected to lock her car on Marston Street in Auburn. So, an opportunistic thief stole her kids’ school backpacks; one was emblazoned with characters from the new cartoon movie Cars, the other with Tinker Bell, the precocious pixie from the classic Peter Pan.

Nothing else was taken. In their haste to rob from children, the thief or thieves overlooked a $700 Nikon digital camera on the floor of the car. “It was just one of those nights,” said Debra Perkins, who works for the Sisters of Charity Foundation at St. Mary’s hospital in Lewiston.

Her grandchildren are a three-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl. Inside the little boy’s new Cars pack were a change of clothes, a blanket and some favorite stuffed animals he had taken to daycare. The little girl’s pack contained her hat and mittens, as well as a folder of schoolwork from her first-grade class at Leeds Central School.

The theft rendered the kids inconsolable. “They both cried,” said Perkins.

Many cars were burglarized Friday and Saturday. Perkins said her daughter’s car was one of several struck on Marston Street alone. Police, on Sunday, said 30 cars were sacked in the city during both nights. All were unlocked and parked on quiet side streets.

Perkins’ family hoped the theft was temporary, and that the thieves, upon realizing the worthlessness of their take, would have dumped the children’s gear nearby. A daylight search yielded nothing but confirmation of an improbable, and downright dastardly, reality: Not only did someone steal from children, but they kept what they stole.

“Our guess is that the thief or thieves were looking for cash or small items of value,” said Perkins. “How many six-year-olds or three-year-olds would have anything of value in their backpacks?”

Few, if any, is the answer.

This fact should weigh on the thief’s mind today. They knowingly victimized children. And unless they inexplicably targeted cartoon-themed backpacks, they had little reason to steal items valuable to only the kids.

Residents should lock their cars, and if they must store valuables inside, lock them in the glove box or the trunk. It’s the standard police advisory after a string of preventable crimes like what occurred in Auburn on this weekend, and should be unquestionably heeded.

Perkins is pessimistic on whether her grandchildren will see their backpacks again. “I’m going to make an assumption that the (thief) will not be the type to read an editorial page,” she said. She’s urging anyone in the community, if they see the stolen backpacks, to call police. We urge the same.

And if the perpetrators do read this, we also ask them to simply return what they stole. At the very least, as Perkins said, “you will make a couple of distraught young children very happy to have their backpacks back.”