By GREG NIKKEL, of the Weyburn Review
As a reporter, I've seen a lot of reports of property damage
come through from the police and provincial court over the years.
Some of these incidents can leave you shaking your head in
wonder at the scale and magnitude of property destruction or damage,
and rarely do you ever hear of a reason given by the perpetrators
once they're caught.
When they appear in court, they sometimes shrug their shoulders
when asked for a reason by the judge, but most times they'll indicate
to their lawyer they don't want to say anything. Sometimes restitution
will be ordered, but occasionally the judge will determine the
offender is not likely to be able to pay for the damage and leave
it at the punishment ordered, whether it's probation or incarceration.
I would sure like to be there when the perpetrator(s) involved
with vandalizing our van comes up, but it's not likely this person
or persons will ever get that far.
Perhaps I should back up a bit and explain.
For the past few years, we've had this Dodge Caravan that would
alternately serve us and mostly work well, and then create some
major catastrophic breakdown, requiring the replacement of such
things as the drive axle or the engine.
After the most recent breakdown, wherein a sparkplug was blown
out of the cylinder (don't ask, it's a long story) we decided
enough was enough, and looked for something else, something (we
ardently hope) better.
We think we've found it, in the form of an Aerostar van. We
had it home from the dealership, all sparkly clean and shiny on
the outside, and perfectly spotless inside. Not a smudge, not
a stain, not even a grain of sand besmirched the interior.
Someone obviously found this offensive, because they took it
into their heads to blow in this stuff and cover every single
square inch/millimitre with this extremely fine, pale yellow dust
during the night as it sat in front of our residence. It kind
of looked like chalk dust, but two different people (including
a police officer) said it was from a fire extinguisher.
This scene presented itself when I went to get in to drive
to work. When I last saw it, the van was immaculate, as I've mentioned;
looking at it now, this dust stuff permeated the interior, covering
absolutely everything, including the fabric of the seats, the
carpets on the floor, all the nooks and crannies of the dashboard,
even in the little corners underneath the seats.
I had no time to deal with this, as I had to get to work, so
I grabbed a couple of towels from the house and draped them over
the seat just so I could sit in the vehicle and drive.
Needless to say, I was not impressed. Even now, after all the
work to get it vacuumed out, I am still not impressed, as I can
still see occasional little traces of this insidious material
hiding in little places around the interior.
It cost money, and rather a lot of effort, to get the van clean
again, but it's just not the same as before, when it was in a
spotless pristine state the day it was brought home from the dealership.
The first among many questions relating to this incident is,
why? Why would someone think it was necessary to do something
so moronic, so utterly stupid?
If it was something I've said or done, then why wouldn't they
have the courage to write, phone or talk to me about it? If it
was for no other reason than to be malicious, have a laugh or
because we have a nice vehicle parked in front of our house -
that is so stupid and so maddening, it's hard to put into words
how that makes me feel.
In some senses, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. We
didn't have anything stolen (but then, we didn't have anything
in the van at the time) or any other kind of damage, but believe
me this was enough. In fact, it was more than enough; it was downright
inexcusable.
I almost hesitate to classify myself as a victim of crime in
this matter - but in a real sense, that's what I am. For a long
time, whenever I heard the charge of "committing mischief
by interfering with the enjoyment of property," I didn't
really understand what that meant - until now.
If ever someone is charged for this act of stupidity on our
van, I would hope that is the charge that gets laid, because that
is exactly what this act did: it violated our space, it was mischievous,
and interfered with the lawful enjoyment of our property by the
whole family. I couldn't let anyone else sit in the van until
I was able to thoroughly clean it out.
Most of all, however, I'd like to hear the judge make a pronouncement about doing community service hours, making restitution and writing an apology to the victim of the crime.
Box 400, 904 East Avenue
Weyburn, SK
S4H 2K4
Phone: (306) 842-7487
Fax: (306) 842-0282
E-mail: weyburn.review@sk.sympatico.ca
This web page and its contents are copyright of the Weyburn
Review (1987) Ltd.
