COLUMBUS -- Two area teens have been detained in connection with an April 23 incident in which three hooded suspects carrying spray-paint cans were caught by surveillance cameras vandalizing the outside walls of Sunrise Elementary School.
The 17-year-old suspects, one from Columbus and one from Schuyler, have both been cited with criminal mischief stemming from an estimated $2,000 in graffiti on the north and west sides of the elementary school.
Ryan Roberts of Schuyler has been charged in criminal court in Platte County, while Miguel Guttierez of Columbus has not been formally charged in criminal or juvenile court. Both will turn 18 years old this summer.
The teens are being held in the Northeast Nebraska Juvenile Facility in Madison.
The juveniles were cited after officers matched up surveillance video from the school with video from Wal-Mart Supercenter security cameras earlier in the night of two groups of teens buying cans of spray paint, Platte County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Dane Jensen said.
In the store video footage, “two different groups of male subjects entered Wal-Mart at two separate times on the night of April 22 and early morning of April 23,’’ Jensen said in an arrest and detention affidavit filed in the case.
“Blue spray paint was purchased by each group, on both occasions,” Jensen said. Seven suspects were caught on video at the school and store, with four of them at the scene of the crime, he said.
Wal-Mart also provided investigators with cash register transaction receipts from the groups’ purchases listing several cans of blue spray paint as among the items that were bought by the suspects.
The deputy said one of the suspects identified in both sets of videos is seen in the school video spray painting “South Side 13” on a wooden railing of a walkway leading to classrooms and spraying graffiti on a tree and playground equipment.
The affidavit stated that South Side 13 refers to a Schuyler street gang.
Jensen said officers would continue to attempt to identify other suspects in the videos.
The late-April incident was the first time the elementary school was hit by vandals. The school was burglarized several years ago.
School officials said the vandals sprayed the graffiti in areas away from East 29th Avenue on the east and Eighth Street on the south where passers-by might have observed them.
Vandalism reports in the area spiked during March and April, with complaints of rural and city homes being broken into and postal equipment defaced with gang-related graffiti.
Criminal mischief is a Class IV felony, punishable by a maximum of five years imprisonment, $10,000 fine or both and no minimum sentence.
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