Rooftops are a theme in this week's wacky police news column: in one town, teens reportedly broke into a school through the roof, and in another, kids were running on a school roof.

Stealing to steal steel.

In Northborough, detectives are investigating a theft of the likes they've never seen. Selling stolen metal for scrap has become popular among thieves in recent years, but the folks responsible for this particular crime went a step further. An approximately 100-foot section of railroad had been removed from an abandoned track, presumably with the help of a reported-stolen backhoe the culprits left behind. So, the steel, as well as the tool used to steal, were both stolen. 

Oops, wrong town.

Three men knocked on a door in Milford Saturday night, alarming a person who called police. The men, who were employed by a Hopkinton nursing company, said they were taking care of a woman in that building, but the description did not match anyone inside. Police determined the three men were in the wrong town. The workers were supposed to be in Upton.

They didn't make it through Burglary 101.

In Marlborough, these kids must have felt pretty slick when they carried a bag of "burglarious tools" into a local middle school. Cops found a flashlight holding one of the school's doors open. The kids, who were arrested, told police they entered by way of the roof. Their intent was not immediately evident.

These kids were off the wall...

..and on the roof. Hopkinton Police responded early Monday night to a school in town and found two sophomores running on the building's roof.