Vandalism At Cookeville City Parks Not Uncommon

With multiple reports over the last week of parks across Putnam County being broken into, vandalism at Cookeville city parks is not an uncommon occurrence.

Cookeville Leisure Service Director Rick Woods said that they typically see an increase in these instances during the summer months. He said that there is not one park that sees the most vandalism, but park bathrooms are most commonly hit.

“Tearing stall walls down or ripping toilet paper holders off of restroom walls or tearing sinks off the wall, just senseless activity,” Woods said. “And all of those things have happened this year, in recent months.”

Woods said that they also had incidents of concession stands being broken into.

Woods said that when they see these incidents they file police reports and work to identify culprits. He said that in cases where they are able to identify individuals, they do press charges.

“And we have had occasions where we’ve been able to identify the individuals who have committed these senseless acts of vandalism,” Woods said.

Woods said that outside of law enforcement, one of the best ways people can help this issue is that when you see something, say something. He said it helps to decrease such incidents if they address them as quickly as possible.

“From what we’ve experienced and the vandalism activity that we’ve seen, there is not really any specific danger,” Woods said. “These are not things that have been committed with any big tools that could be dangerous or any weapons, it is usually people ripping things down or kicking things down (…) It’s not necessarily aimed at anyone as much as it as just pure senseless activity that benefits nobody.”