Just when you thought the crooks in this city had stolen everything they possibly could, the ante gets upped: overnight, someone stole four teddy bears that were among 80 put on display at the city's NAACP office to honor victims of homicide.

I had written a column on the artist, Faith Bocian, a student at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, and blogged about the ceremony. I headed up to the building  to see what happened. At left, Officer Michael Gordon of the Northern District looks at the display with Joseph Armstead of the NAACP. "Who could have the indeciency to do somthing like this," Gordon said (I'll have a fuller story on this issue in tomorrow's column).

Armstead told me that one of the executive committee members noticed this morning that a tarp put over the display had been torn and that four plastic links securing the bears to a railing had been cut. Each bear had a nametag on it with the name of a person who had been killed this year.

Just why would anyone steal a bear that honors a murder victim?

"It's a real touching memorial," Armstead told me. "Times are hard. Maybe a junkie would figure he could get a bag of dope for four teeddy bears. A parent with some crazy thinking might think her babdy might like this. Or maybe someone anti-establishment wanted to destroy the piece. Who knows?”

At 1 p.m., Armstead was headed back into the city to call police -- "For the statistic, I guess" -- he told me. Meanwhile, the "I Can't, We Can" drug rehab group has vowed to help Faith keep the project going so that by the end of the year there is a bear for every person killed in Baltimore.

Faith told me she might move the exhibit to a museum or even to a rolling display so that everyone in the city could see it. I was touched that one of the city police officer's who responded to investigate the theft took the time to actually look at the display and find names of victims from cases he investigated.

In that way, Faith's idea to provoke thought worked, even it if took something bad to get it going. Armstead said he thinks students from nearby Margaret Brent Elementary School took the bears and he told me the vice principal is going to make an announcement tomorrow to get the bears returned. Armstead said he wouldn't press charges if a child took them; he even agreed to help mentor kids and to take 50 of them to an Orioles game.

Maybe something good can from this after all.