Parkway arson: $110K damage at Meadowcreek
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Approximately $110,000 worth of construction materials, including a backhoe, for the controversial Meadowcreek Parkway have been destroyed in what is now labeled arson and vandalism. Charlottesville City fire crews responded to a call the evening of Tuesday, June 16, for the materials belonging to Faulconer Construction, which were located at Melbourne Road, near the Charlottesville High School football field. After determining the incident took place in Albemarle County, the County’s Fire Marshal will now lead the investigation, with assistance from County Police and the FBI. County officials declined to speculate on a motive, and no suspects have been named. According to VDOT no delays are expected as a result of the arson.
I could be wrong here, but that probably won’t stop the parkway from being built.
This isn’t unusual or a first. The same thing happened at the Target Site when the land was being cleared. It’s nothing more than kids with very little to occupy their time.
It’s good job security for law enforcement though. We’ll spend hundreds of thousands of dollars investigating this thing to tract down a few kids. Law enforcement would actually save money if they simply paid the $110,000 in damages themselves. The courts aren’t going to do anything with a couple of overactive bored teens.
When I was about 11 or 12 bicycling around my rural neighborhood in Pennsylvania I saw a backhoe parked which was going to dig a road through a field preparatory to starting a development. I cut with my penknife an hydraulic line. Just being a juvenile delinquent. But the backhoe was rendered helpless at least temporarily, and then neighbors ganged up on the guy trying to develop the field, and very smartly went after his bank which pulled out on the financing, and now forty years later that field is still undeveloped. So I guess the moral of the story is: crime pays.
Well, there you have it folks. Right from the horse’s mouth, a juvenile vandalizes a backhoe in Pennsylvania. Most likely the same thing that took place on Melbourne Road. And most likely the same thing that happened at the Target site a while back.
I expect the assessment above (juvenile delinquent) is most likely correct. Figuring he could get away with it because of the hellraising going on by the treehuggers, he’s probably right! I seriously doubt any of the “huggers” has the balls to do anything about it. They’re just a bunch of whiners! Charlottesville is full of them. The Parkway should have been built 30 years ago. I have to travel 29 north every day. Any diversion of traffic will be welcomed by anyone who travels this route, not just locally. I really feel sorry for anyone who regularly travels through this snakepit!
NOW STEVEIE, Who’s whining now? SOOOO Funny!
Enjoy tomorrow’s trip on 29 and thank the County for their wise planning in setting up 29 the way it is.
Actually, Sick, the mouth is not the part of the horse’s anatomy which I feel best describes my destructive 11 or 12 year old self.
Whoever vandalized the Parkway equipment should know that they might get away with it once, but not twice. To protect expensive equipment there will be devices and sensors now, like the automatic motion-sensor infrared deer-stalking cameras Cabellos sells, to record trespassers.
An attack of this sort either must deal a completely crippling blow the first time–or none at all. Antagonizing an adversary without actually hurting them that much, so they get angry and marshall resources and resolve to prevail no matter what, is stupid. Ask the Japanese, after Pearl Harbor. Or the Taliban, after 9/11. Saddam Hussein tried to assassinate George Bush Sr. (his son George Jr. happened to be with him at the time ) You can dig up Saddam and ask how that worked out.
Record trespassers? The land is public property. Sold by the City of Charlottesville to VDOT.
Personally, I believe one of North Korea’s test missiles hit the backhoe!
I hope they use the insurance money to buy faster and more lethal equipment to get this job done once and for all.
Sick: We criminals have an sensitive understanding of the law of trespass. Any injury to property is a trespass. Whether the injury is stepping on somebody else’s posted land, or cutting down somebody else’s trees (even by mistake), or allowing your toxic waste to leak onto somebody else’s property-all a trespass–these examples all taken from recent trespass cases. In early 19th Century in Virginia, beating or even killing another person’s slave was deemed a trespass: an injury to their property. There are more specific laws now which deal with vandalism, and since done by fire, arson, but the overall breach here in destroying property was a trespass. This kids better hope one of their friends doesn’t rat them out because $110,000 worth of damage is not slap on the wrist money. Its jail time.
Has it come out that it was just some kids? I automatically assumed it was some of the boneheads behind this “protest”.
df, Your opinion is out of touch with reality in this case. You may as well learn to put up with the peaceful protestors because they won’t back down from what I hear. In fact they seem to be gaining ground politically and otherwise. I hope these jerks (probably juviniles) are caught and made to pay. The problem in this area, if a kid comes from a bad home, is mentally unstable, or is poor, the court won’t come down hard. Remember in this area kids can target shoot on the interstate highway and they’re out of jail lickety split!
oh come on city kid, they where just having fun!