Playground vandal can start sweating; reward fund grows
POST FALLS — A warning to whomever is trying to hurt children at a Post Falls playground:
You're screwed.
After news surfaced that someone had driven a sharp screw up through a children's slide at Tullamore Park — not once, but twice in the last week — attorney Starr Kelso stepped forward. He offered $200 as a reward to anyone whose information leads to the arrest and conviction of the culprit or culprits.
On Friday, The Press invited others to contribute, and within three hours the reward fund had grown to $1,125.
"That infuriates the crap out of me, that somebody wants to hurt a little kid who just wants to go down a slide," said Jim Landers, who added a few more choice words with his donation of $200.
Chuck Brumbach and Lee Gibson each tossed $100 into the reward kitty, and Marv Franz of Post Falls pitched in $75.
Mayor Ron Jacobson matched Kelso's initial $200, but the biggest donation came from someone who doesn't even live here — yet.
A retired electrical engineer from central California has been a Press digital subscriber for about two years, as he and his wife are having a home built here and plan to move into it this fall.
"I saw that picture [of the screw poking up through the slide] and can't even imagine why someone would do that," the man said in a telephone call Friday morning. He asked that his name not be used in this story.
The man said he and his wife are thrilled to be moving to a community "that appreciates what it has" and "understands how precious that is."
Helping nail the vandal, even from hundreds of miles away, would be extremely satisfying, he said.
If you have information about the Tullamore Park vandalism, please call Post Falls Police at 208-773-3517.
If you'd like to contribute to the reward fund, make out a check to Coeur d'Alene Press, 215 N. Second St., Coeur d'Alene, 83814, and include a note that the money is for the playground reward fund.
If the perpetrator is not caught, all donated funds will go to the Post Falls Parks and Recreation Department for cameras that can be used to catch future vandals.