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Vandals hit Brookline cemetery

E-mail|Link|Comments () March 6, 2010 03:42 PM

By Sean Teehan, Globe Correspondent

Vandals knocked over tombstones and littered the area with beer bottles and cans at a historic Brookline cemetery.

Eight memorials were knocked over in the Old Burying Ground. The damage happened Thursday and was discovered Friday morning, Brookline Police said.

The cemetery, which is the oldest in Brookline, was also vandalized in July. No one was charged in the crime.

“I’m assuming it’s kids drinking,” Police Captain Tom Keaveney said.

Brookline Police said the bottles and cans they found in the secluded area of the cemetery had fingerprints on them.

However, finding and prosecuting the culprits in this case is “almost impossible” even with fingerprints, said Keaveney, who said he lived near the cemetery himself.

“Historically, kids have done this [vandalism]… those particular kids may not be in the criminal justice system,” he said.

Even if police match a fingerprint to someone in the system, it would be difficult for police to place a suspect in the graveyard at the time of the incident, according to Keaveney.

“I’ve never been able to understand why people see it fit to vandalize gravestones,” said Kenneth Janes, 69, who lives close to the cemetery on Cushing Road.

Keaveny added the difficulty police face in monitoring the Old Burial Ground, which has no roads.

“You’d literally have to put someone in the cemetery every weekend, which we may do,” he said, since police would “pretty much have to catch someone in the act.”

Keaveney also expressed disappointment with the vandalism.

“It’s too bad. A lot of people have worked on that cemetery. There’s a lot of history there,” he said.