BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. (WCCO) – Vandals hit at the heart of a Brooklyn Center Little League field Monday night, creating a couple thousand dollars in damage and a mess that will take days to clean up.
Police said the incident took place at the facilities on the 6000 block of Vincent Avenue.
“Somebody asked me how I felt today and I just said ‘I’m numb,’” Deb Stoddard said.
(credit: Brooklyn Center Little League)
Stoddard’s the president of the Brooklyn Center American Little League. She said vandalism spread from the concession stand, the storage shed and the score shack — but the biggest mess was in the concession stand.
“From ketchup and mustard, to slushy syrup and pretzels,” she said.
A weed whacker and the the electronics needed to run the scoreboard were stolen. And in the storage shed, a gas line on the lawn mower was cut.
“You can see all the wet — that’s all the gasoline that has leaked out,” she said.
Equipment was tossed around and destroyed.
“It was just the destruction of somebody actually going through and taking the time to pull the fuel line off the lawn mower — to me that’s just inconceivable,” she said. “They had broken into the scoring shed and we had a couple bags of chalk that they spread all over our electronic board.”
Stoddard said the hardest part’s explaining this act to the children.
The Hennepin County crime lab’s investigating, and currently has no suspects.
If you have any information, call crime stoppers at 763-503-3115.
The season’s virtually over, but the league has set up a fund at the TCF Bank in Brooklyn Center because it’s a non-profit organization that relies on the funds from the concession stand. The title of the benefit account at TCF is “Benefit for BCALL.”
