Teen girls to be charged with vandalism at Veterans Memorial By KERRY CRAIG After city workers discovered vandalism at Hopkins County Veterans Memorial on Jan. 13, police detectives have used video cameras the city maintains around the downtown plaza to solve teh crime. The vandalism included names written on the columns along the memorial and other messages on the concrete floor of the kiosk. “We were able to narrow down the time frame of when it happened from that Friday evening to Sunday morning,” said Sulphur Springs Police Investigator Bo Fox. “After reviewing several hours of video from the square, I was able to locate two females on the video that were actually doing the drawings under the kiosk. I was able to identify those two people, a 13-year-old female from Sulphur Springs and a 15-year-old female from Yantis.” The detective said the vandalism was apparently spontaneous, and during interviews with the girls, he learned one of them had family members’ names engraved on the memorial walls. “They picked up a rock and used the rock to write different messages on the columns and the floor of the kiosk area,” Fox said. “The kiosk is part of the memorial, so it is a public monument, and under the statute of graffiti in the penal code, any marking made, or etching, is classified as graffiti and the offense is a state-jail felony.” Fox said preliminary estimates to repair the damage are in excess of $5,000 and could be much more than that. Both girls were referred to juvenile probation officers this morning.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 20:55:56 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015