Police: Vandal Trapped By Tombstone

40 Headstones Damaged In Cemetery

February 22, 2006

ROODHOUSE, Ill. -- Police in the central Illinois town of Roodhouse said a teen became pinned under a tombstone after tipping it over during a vandalism spree at a local cemetery.

Authorities said it took four firefighters to lift a 600-pound gravestone off the 16-year-old boy's leg early Tuesday after he helped knock over that headstone and dozens others.

The boy is recovering from undisclosed injuries at a hospital.

Police Chief Steve Speeks said the boy would be questioned about the alleged vandalism once he's released.

Speeks said about 40 headstones were damaged. Police suspect multiple offenders were involved.

The funeral home director estimated the damage at about $10,000

Roodhouse is about 60 miles southwest of Springfield.

http://www.nbc5.com/news/7325469/detail.html

Cemetery vandalism by children and young adults continues to be an increasing issue nationwide.  In Vermont we recently had over $100,000 damage done at two historic cemeteries by individuals between the ages of
10 and 13.  These children literally destroyed dozen of historic, irreplaceable, grave monuments at these old burial grounds and had no explanation as to why they participated in such a heinous deed.

This type of cemetery vandalism is a relatively new development in the New England and society needs to have remedies to stop this nationwide trend cemetery destruction by children.

>Upon conviction of cemetery vandalism many young perpetrators are often referred to the local county diversion programs (deferred sentences for 1st time offenders), where they are given community service contracts to fulfill.  If the offender is allowed to participate in diversion, part of the contract should include a requirement that the offender research and write the personal history of every person whose headstone was damaged by his actions. This would not only teach the offender the historical significance of cemeteries, but would also give him/her a lesson in history.

The Vermont Old Cemetery Association has a curriculum unit available to teach history by using a curriculum entitled "Stones and Bones" which is available to educators on the VOCA web site, www.sover.net/~hwdbry/voca/ (or do an information on-line search for Vermont Old Cemetery Association.) This unit puts students in cemeteries to show how valuable burial grounds as a resource can be.

VOCA is in its 3rd year of partnership with the Youth Conservation Corps. This is an organization that employs young men and women in summer jobs in the U.S.  VOCA has partially funded YCC work crews to work in old burial grounds in Vermont and repair and straighten cemetery stones.  This is a great opportunity to teach respect of cemeteries to young adults by having them repair damaged stones.  The participants in this program have all enjoyed the experience and some hope to continue to volunteer in cemeteries in their own communities in the future. 

This May, I worked with the Vermont Flood Brook School cleaning Civil War era stones in a cemetery in the southern part of the state. This was done in conjunction with a Civil War history unit the teacher was completing with her class of about 20 students.  The students were excited about the project and cleaned many lichen encrusted stones and were rather put out when they had to leave to go back to school that afternoon. I received a nice thank you card from the students stating that learning about the individuals that died in the Civil War and cleaning their stones was the best part of the day. Programs such as these are ways that we can teach our young people their history.  I can guarantee that none of the students that participated in cleaning the stones would ever consider damaging a stone in any cemetery.

Do the local veteran groups i.e. VFW, Legion, etc. utilize local students to put flags on graves of veterans on Memorial Day?  What better way to teach the sacrifices that our ancestors than by encouraging local students of any age to honor our dead in local cemeteries and what better way for students to learn their community's history than by having a school adopt a cemetery for the year and do research on the individuals buried. 

Vandalism can be stopped if our young people are shown that the significance of cemeteries is that if THEIR HISTORY and should be valued and preserved for future generations.

If anyone would like more information on VOCA, I can be reached at (802) 773-3253 or email at tgifvt@msn.com.

Tom Giffin

VOCA President

Updated Saturday, January 20, 2007