Vandals broke into a public recreation center in Lewiston and spray-painted crude graffiti across the gym on Tuesday night, according to a city employee.
The vandals, whom police identified as three local juveniles, according to WCSH, also sprayed fire extinguishers, unrolled gym mats, and scattered broken glass across the gym floor, as well as smashed a vending machine, recreation Superintendent Jason Hanken said.
But it was the quantity of spray-painted penises — Hanken estimated there were about 10 — that called to mind the hit Netflix mockumentary “American Vandal,” a satirical whodunnit that investigates a spate of crude graffiti.
“I call dibs on the movie rights,” Hanken said of the local version of events.
The broken glass and graffiti forced the city to cancel programming in the morning. Luckily, a game of bingo for seniors that takes place every other Wednesday wasn’t scheduled for this week, Hanken said.
Lewiston police spent the day using the property’s camera footage to identify the suspects, whose identities are being withheld, according to WCSH. Police are waiting on a cost assessment of the damages to decide whether to press felony charges.
An employee discovered the damage when she arrived for work around 6:30 a.m. and noticed broken glass from the vending machine strewn on the ground. She then came upon a foamy mess made by fire extinguishers, as well as mats and balls thrown across the floors of the building’s large gym, and the graffiti, mostly penises, Hanken said.
No substantial damage was done to the gym’s two basketball courts, and nothing was stolen from the vending machine, Hanken said. “It didn’t seem like they were looking to steal anything,” he said, “just looking to smash things.”
Maintenance crews spent their day doing a lot of scrubbing, Hanken said, and evening programming was back on.