Some Oak Creek-Franklin families spent Monday morning scrambling for rides after thieves crept into a Go Riteway Transportation Group bus lot over the weekend and stripped catalytic converters from 38 vehicles, disrupting routes for the school district that serves roughly 6,500 students. Parents like Dave George, whose daughter's bus was scheduled to arrive shortly after 6:30 a.m., were left waiting and improvising as the district and its bus contractor worked to patch together a fleet.
According to TMJ4 News, Oak Creek police responded early Monday morning to the Go Riteway facility at 7433 S. 10th St. after discovering that 37 vehicles had been vandalized over the weekend. Investigators reported that two to three suspects entered the property sometime between 4:15 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. Sunday, and believe the suspects parked near the gate on S. 13th Street before cutting the converters loose from 38 buses. Not every family was affected the same way — Dainey Burns said his two youngest children were still able to catch the bus Monday.
A Second Hit at the Same Lot in Ten Months
This is not the first time this exact facility has been targeted. The same Go Riteway bus lot was hit in a similar theft in November 2025, when thieves made off with catalytic converters from 26 school buses, according to WISN 12 News. That earlier raid also knocked dozens of buses out of service for the Oak Creek-Franklin district, meaning the district and its contractor have now weathered two major overnight breaches at the same address in less than a year.
Oak Creek resident Dimity Grabowski said the vandalism has happened numerous times in Oak Creek, and argued there needs to be a better plan in place for parents who rely heavily on the bus system. Go Riteway said its facility is fenced and monitored by cameras, and the company noted that school bus lots can be targets for organized theft because of the scrap value of the metals packed inside catalytic converters, per the company's statement to TMJ4.
Why Bus Fleets Keep Getting Targeted
The vulnerability isn't unique to Oak Creek. Fleet insurer Church Mutual has noted that school buses and commercial trucks are prime targets for this kind of theft because their high ground clearance lets thieves slide underneath and cut converters loose without needing hydraulic jacks, as Hoodline reported in August. Commercial bus converters also tend to carry higher concentrations of valuable platinum and palladium than the converters found in standard passenger cars.
The financial toll adds up fast. Replacing a single stolen catalytic converter typically runs between $1,000 and $3,500 per vehicle, not counting losses from vehicle downtime and emergency rerouting, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau. Nationwide, insurance claims for these thefts jumped from 16,660 in 2020 to 64,701 in 2022, a surge the bureau attributes to soaring market prices for the precious metals inside the devices. Wisconsin has responded by classifying catalytic converter theft as a felony offense: under Wisconsin Statute § 943.23(5), a converter is legally treated as a major part of a vehicle, making its unauthorized removal a Class I felony.
Routes Patched Together With Spare Buses
Go Riteway moved spare buses from facilities across Wisconsin into Oak Creek to keep the district running, and the company expected all afternoon routes to run Monday. The Oak Creek-Franklin Joint School District said it would excuse absences or tardies for students unable to get to school, or arriving late, because of the transportation issue. The district's Stopfinder app used for GPS bus tracking could also be temporarily unavailable, since substitute buses were filling in on regular routes.
Franklin Public Schools had warned families that the vandalism could affect bus routes there as well, but the district later reported that no Franklin routes were actually impacted. Go Riteway, which was founded in 1957 with four buses in Germantown and has grown into a family-owned operator running more than 1,300 vehicles across over 25 Midwest locations, said it is cooperating with the Oak Creek Police Department's investigation and reviewing additional security measures for the lot.
Tip Line Open as Investigation Continues
Oak Creek police are asking anyone with information about the suspects, their vehicles, or people seen near the Go Riteway gate to come forward. Tips can be directed to Detective Timothy Zwicke at 414-766-7664, or submitted anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 414-766-7699.
The Oak Creek case echoes a pattern playing out across the Midwest. In April, thieves cut catalytic converters from 33 school buses at a Student First Inc. yard on Chicago's West Side in an overnight raid that Hoodline covered at the time, forcing a similar scramble for emergency fleet substitutions. Whether investigators can trace the stolen Oak Creek parts through regional scrap channels, and what added perimeter security Go Riteway ultimately installs, remain open questions as the case continues.
