LIVERMORE FALLS, Maine – Police arrested two 16-year-old boys Tuesday evening and charged them with toppling monuments and gravestones at Pleasant View Cemetery this week.
The damage is estimated at $2,400.
The Livermore Falls and Wilton teens each face a felony charge of aggravated criminal mischief, Livermore Falls Police Chief Ernest Steward Jr. said. They were charged about 6 p.m. Tuesday and then released to their parents.
A dog tracking team from the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department and assistance from residents led Livermore Falls police Officer Dan Chabot to the youths, Steward said.
Police have kept a closer watch on the cemetery over the last few days because of a problem that developed around one grave, he said. Police patrolled the cemetery about 1:30 a.m. Monday and the vandalism was reported at 5:03 a.m.
About 15 monuments were toppled while lights, flowers, flags and other items were taken from several graves in the cemetery.
The stones already have been reset, Ken Finley of Finley Funeral Home said. He called a monument company to reset the stones.
“We were really fortunate. There was very light damage to the stones,” he said Wednesday. “We just do everything we can to rectify the situation.”
Costs reaching $2,400 so far have been covered by Finley, who says he looks for restitution but it doesn’t usually happen.
The large crane brought in to reset the stones costs $1,500, Steward said. Police have no way to estimate the costs amounting from the lights, flags and other items damaged or taken from the graves.
The Livermore Falls boy was brought to the Livermore Falls police station while police gave a summons to the Wilton boy at his home. Both were given a conditional release that includes a home curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., attending school, no criminal actions, submitting to searches for alcohol and drugs, no contact with each other and no visits to the cemetery.
Police referred the case to the Androscoggin County juvenile correction officer who decides whether to pursue court action or to handle it himself, Steward said.
The boys are scheduled to appear in court Oct. 22, he added.
No boys.
Heads go to the graveyard to get stoned, not to get the headstones…boneheads.
Such acts do not make the dead grateful.
Right on, right on!
(not to mention catch a smootch-n-feel from your frightened sweety..)
The little punks should be responsible for the restitution. Let them earn the money to pay for the damage they did. It should not be the parents who pay for it. Better that they learn that actions have consequences now while they are juveniles and we do not know their names than become regulars who get in the paper all the time for all the wrong reasons.
Although the funeral has a nice profit margin, this one deserves restitution. It’s gonna be a snowy winter, so these boogers better get their shovels ready. $24oo isn’t that hard to repay!
hand them a bag of cement and let these pre- adult criminals go to work fixing the 15 graves they damaged………Congrats moms and or dads, you should be so proud of the bang up job you did raising these delinquents, they are well on their way to being career felons………chalk one up for mom and or dad……
I think making the boys pay for the damage, and not the parents is a good idea. They might as well start right now learning to be responsible for their own actions. Maybe the jails wouldn’t be so full had more of them been held accountable when they where younger.
The kids or families will repay $0. This is Maine, where kids like this are let off easy and develop into full-time scum. It won’t be their last crime.
prolly turn into those people who burned the car
Make the kids work to replace the lights and flowers, flags, etc.
And part of their release should be restitution. Their parents, if they were parents at all, would have already offered to make sure their lovely little cretins paid this bill.
theres some wannabe wigger riding a bike around monson
Wow we have such fine upstanding citizens posting here. none of them EVER stepped out of line when they were young.
I’m real glad I grew up when and where I did, away from self-rightous sanctimonious preachy people.
Sure the boys should pay for their actions, but relegating them to “becoming adult criminals, or scum, is a bit over-the-edge.
Many children screw-up. most become good adults.
So not even the weary resting souls are safe from the sickened minds of the wayward youth in today’s society. They will dance with the Devil in due time.
Aweful hard work, mowin’ a cemetary…..