Costs from vandalism and criminal mischief in Rindge are adding up to a larger financial and safety issue, prompting town officials to speak out.
Police Chief Rachel Malynowski posted to the department’s Facebook page last week, outlining the seriousness of these incidents, and is scheduled to speak on the topic at the Rindge Crime Watch meeting Tuesday, Nov. 9, at 6:30 p.m. at the Rindge Recreation Center.
Halloween weekend, the police department responded to incidents that included cars doing doughnuts on the Town Common and at Crow Croft Pond, burnouts in the Walmart parking lot, a tire fire and mailboxes being blown up in several areas of town. There were also reports of OHRVs driving in the roadway, a racial epithet shouted on West Main Street and an underage drinking party involving 17 youths.
In October, the fire department responded to six tire fires. As of September, the department had responded to 24 tire fires throughout the year, according to Rindge Fire Department call statistics. Tire fires can create damage that costs up to $1,000 to fix properly, and the torn-up grass on the common is estimated to take $1,500 to repair, Malynowski said. Use of modified or illegal fireworks to blow up a mailbox is also a felony.
There have also been at least two car crashes in Malynowski’s term on Route 119, one caused by a stack of unlit tires and the other by debris from a stack of pallets and tires from a fire in the roadway.
“Everything has a cost,” Malynowski said. “It’s not a victimless crime. There’s always a victim, and it’s most often the taxpayer.”
Karl Pruter, chair of the Rindge Slect Board and a member of the fire department, said what once would have been a single tire lit on fire in the middle of the road has become stacks of tires, other trash and sometimes electronics.
“This is an escalation in both the number of fires, as well as the intensity of the fires,” Pruter said. “No one has yet been seriously injured, but there has been a real possibility.”
Rindge Director of Life Safety and Fire Chief Rick Donovan said his main concern is safety.
In addition to the crashes already on record involving fire debris, Donovan said every time his crew is out on the road doing cleanup, there’s a risk. In addition, the Rindge Fire Department is an on-call department, Donovan said, and all of its members have other livelihoods. Frequent late-night calls to deal with intentionally set fires burns out the department and discourages volunteers, he said. At least twice last month, he said the department was responding to a criminal mischief complaint when they received a second medical call.
“It this is a ‘tradition,’ it needs to stop,” Donovan said. “It’s getting very harmful. You’re jeopardizing every one’s safety. I have a huge concern about that. It started as toilet paper on the common. It’s evolved past that and is now causing more problems and destruction.”
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.