MANSFIELD — Vandals broke into Kingwood Center Gardens early Friday morning, damaging the holiday lights display and a catering van parked onsite.
“Our team is hard at work cleaning up what is damaged beyond repair,” a representative wrote on the center’s Facebook page Friday afternoon.
“The reset of the majority of the displays has been completed and we will be open tonight for our final night of Christmas at Kingwood 2022.”
Kingwood’s Executive Director Josh Steffen said cleanup took about four hours. The intruders pushed over one large light tree and dismantled another, smashed some glass display cases and terra cotta flower pots, tossed patio furniture into the garden beds, threw a string of lights into the duck pond and disassembled some of the lighted archway.
The vandals also smashed in the windows of a Buehler’s Catering van and rifled through toolboxes inside. Steffen was not aware of any items stolen from the vehicle.
“The rest of the property — the mansion, our visitors center and the other historic buildings — were untouched, so we’re grateful that that kind of damage was not sustained here,” Steffen said.
Steffen said security footage showed at least four individuals inside the gardens from 1 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. Two of them appear to be wearing white clothing, possibly white hoodies.
While the individuals were too far away to get good closeups, Steffen said the park is working on getting footage to the Mansfield Police Department.
Steffen called the destruction immature, disrespectful and disappointing.
He said Kingwood is in the midst of strengthening its security. The non-profit recently installed a professional-grade alarm system in its buildings and created a security department. Kingwood continues to add cameras throughout the park as funding allows.
“We’re still building procedures to deal with these kinds of things, so they kind of hit us mid-stride,” he said.
Both Steffen and a dispatch officer from the Mansfield Police Department said Kingwood wasn’t the only property in the area vandalized Friday morning, with other locations including the old Kingsgate Cinema building and Grahm Auto Mall located on West Fourth Street. Additional information was unavailable at the time of publication.
Anyone with information that could lead to the identification or arrest of the vandals should call the Mansfield Police Department dispatch center at 419-522-1234.
