Update: Sapulpa police have arrested a second person in this incident. See the story here.
Sapulpa police have arrested a man in connection with a series of vandalism that occurred at three of the city’s area parks over the weekend.
Nineteen-year-old Brandon Michael Arnold has been arrested and charged with felony vandalism after city officials and citizens reported several instances of vandalism and graffiti at multiple parks, beginning with Liberty Park—one of Sapulpa’s newest.
“My phone has been blowing up about this all weekend,” Sapulpa Parks Director Carson Lynch told Sapulpa Times during a conversation on Monday. “I first heard about this on Friday. Then I was told about Heritage Park, and I’ve just been notified that it looks like Davis Park was hit, too.”
The graffiti at each park contained a series of racial slurs, symbols of hate speech, and derogatory remarks towards real people. One of the parents we spoke with at the park recognized one of the names. “I went to high school with him, and he is African-American, so that’s probably why that other one says the n-word over there,” he remarked. Luckily, the children he’d brought to the park weren’t old enough to read. “Yeah, we’d have left in a hurry, if they could read what he’d said.”
At Heritage Park, another parent was playing with her three children, all of whom appeared to be under the age of six. She said she didn’t understand why Arnold would choose a children’s playground to display his hate-filled messages. “I mean, why a park? It’s not like they’re going to get the message here, what’s the point? Our kids are here.”
Sapulpa Police Captain Troy Foreman told Sapulpa Times that Arnold was identified by a citizen, who reported him to the authorities. Upon his arrest, Arnold confessed to being the perpetrator. As of the time of this writing, he had not given a motive for the crime.
Parks department asking citizens to not help clean graffiti
As word of the vandalism spread over social media, eventually, a conversation began about how to clean up the graffiti, and several commenters offered to pitch in to help clean the playgrounds. Cheryl Bilby is the maintenance supervisor for Sapulpa Parks and has said it would be best if the community didn’t try to help.
“Please don’t use any cleaners or spray paint on our playground,” she said in a Facebook comment. “It could affect our warranty. We have contacted experts about the safety surface. It costs thousands of dollars and we don’t want to do anything to either make it worse or void our warranty. Please let the experts handle this.”
Lynch said that the city does have insurance for situations like these, but the exact amount in total damage assessment wouldn’t be determined until after the repairs were complete. “We’re waiting to hear back from the manufacturer on how best to clean this out of the floor. It’s very expensive, so we don’t want to make it worse. We already know it’s going to be thousands of dollars, but we also have to take into account the materials, the labor…it’s a lot.”
The City of Sapulpa has closed Liberty Park while they work to remove the graffiti. Davis Park and Heritage Park have not been closed yet, but sections of the parks may be closed in the near future to allow the crew to clean.
