UPDATE: City police continue to investigate the break-in at Sadleir House over the long weekend.

Police say the break-in occurred between Saturday afternoon and Monday at noon. Two offices belonging to the Trent Queer Collective and the Community Race Relations Committee were entered, with $100 in cash stolen from the Queer Collective office and $500-$1,000 in damage caused.

The break-in was reported to police Tuesday.

Anyone with information is asked to call police at 705-876-1122 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS or www.stopcrimehere.ca

ORIGINAL STORY:

Intruders forced open the office doors of both the Community Race Relations Committee of Peterborough and the Trent Queer Collective in Sadleir House over the weekend, an act that one official is calling a hate crime.

Charmaine Magumbe, the chairwoman of the race relations committee, said the two organizations were targeted for vandalism.

"It was definitely a hate crime against race and LGTBQ people," she said.

A lock box containing a few hundred dollars from a drag performance was stolen from the Queer Collective office, said co-ordinator West Brown.

No further vandalism was noted in the Queer Collective office, and nothing else appeared to be missing on Tuesday.

In the Race Relations office, nothing was noted as missing and the interior of the office wasn't trashed – but the door was forced open and hanging off its hinges on Tuesday.

Magumbe said the incidents were reported to Peterborough Police, who investigated (although a media release wasn't available on Tuesday).

It was unclear on Tuesday how anyone entered the building; Magumbe said exterior doors are locked on weekends. She also said the building has no security cameras.

Sadleir House is a community and student centre for Trent University; it is located in a house built in 1882 on George St. N (at Parkhill Rd.)

Magumbe works in Lindsay as an international student adviser at Fleming College's Frost Campus, and is the volunteer chairwoman of the race relations committee.

On Tuesday morning she received an email at work in Lindsay to inform her of the break-in.

"It was definitely targeted," Magumbe said. "There are a lot of different offices in the building - they went straight for the race relations offices and the Queer Collective."

Other offices in the building include the Arthur newspaper and OPIRG.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Community Race Relations Peterborough is a non-profit organization that is "committed to encouraging and promoting sound race relations in Peterborough," says their website.

Magumbe said Peterborough had the fourth highest rate of hate crimes in the nation in 2015, according to Statistics Canada.

In Nov. 2014, the Masjid Al-Salaam mosque in Peterborough was fire bombed - an arson that city police classified as a hate crime.

Three years later, Magumbe says not much has changed.

"For someone to hate you because of skin colour or sexual preference – you'd think that in 2018, that would be passé," she said. "Obviously not."

Brown, a student in mathematical physics at Trent University and the staff coordinator at Trent Queer Collective, also received news of the break-in Tuesday via email.

There's no doubt in Brown's mind the vandalism was a hate crime: "To specifically come after our two offices? We weren't targeted because we have money."

The Trent Queer Collective is an organization that builds and strengthens the queer community at Trent University and in Peterborough, says their website. It organizes social gatherings, discussions and performances in the city.

Brown said on Tuesday that there were no plans yet on how the LGBTQ community might respond to the break-in.

"We need to come together in solidarity around this," Brown said. "This is probably just a small group of people (the vandals)."