Bain Cabin vandals caught
By Kevin Kelley
Fairview Park
Published June 24, 2009

Two juveniles, ages 11 and 12, have admitted to breaking windows at Bain Park Cabin earlier this month, police said.

The two face charges of damaging public property in juvenile court. However, Police Chief Patrick Nealon said the case may be resolved by the city’s youth commission, a local diversion program used to handle first-time offending juveniles.

“There are advantages both for the youth and for the community,” Nealon said of handling the case through the youth commission.

The youth commission may be able to exert greater control over any requirement that the juveniles pay restitution for the broken windows, Nealon said.

Nealon said the youths should pay for repairing the windows.

Windows at the cabin were broken on June 8, 10 and 11, according to police reports. Police then increased surveillance at the cabin.

However, the break in the case came on the evening of June 13 when reports came in that a smoke bomb had been placed in a mailbox at the Fairview Park Post Office. Police later found three juveniles nearby who eventually admitted to knowledge of the cabin damage, according to Nealon.

Two youths signed written statements June 13 admitting that they broke the windows. One said he did it after his friends dared him to do it.

“I did not want to look like a girl,” he wrote in his statement, so he broke the windows.

Both expressed remorse over the damages in their statements.

Two other juveniles were present during at least one of the incidents, according to the police report, but did not participate in the vandalism.

The police chief said the city did not yet have an estimate on the cost of the damage to the cabin’s windows.

Built in the 1930s as a Works Progress Administration project, the cabin suffered a fire shortly before it was to open. The cabin, named after Mayor David Bain, who served from 1932 to 1943, was dedicated in January 1940. In addition to hosting community events and private parties, the cabin is home to the Fairview Park Historical Society Museum.

Deb Hammerle, co-president of the historical society, said the organization is concerned about the vandalism at the building.

“It’s pretty upsetting,” Hammerle said of the recent vandalism, “because it seemed to be concentrated on the south side, which is the museum’s windows.”

Nealon said the department, aided by the city’s auxiliary police, makes additional patrols of the city’s parks and other locations such as the schools and cemetery during the summer months.

Residents who live around Bain Park are very protective of it, Nealon said, and do a good job of keeping their eyes peeled for any problems.

The police department has not seen any recent increase in juvenile crime or vandalism, Nealon said, although the window breaking at Bain Cabin was a concern due to the anticipated high cost of repair to the city.

Messages posted recently on an online news site claimed that a group of juveniles influenced by the hip-hop music group Insane Clown Posse was causing trouble in the city. However, Nealon said his department looked into that and found that the claim was overblown.