Florida Grinches destroy holiday decorations
SATELLITE BEACH, Florida — Police in Florida are on alert for a few Grinches whose overnight slashing and stabbing spree flattened multiple inflatable holiday characters in front of people's homes.
The vandalisms were reported Thursday morning by several Satellite Beach residents.
“It’s disappointing to know that someone would do this at this time of the year. It’s the holiday season,” said 36-year-old Ryan Williams, whose wife first noticed the deflated decorations lying across the lawn when she left for work.
Officers arrived to find a crime scene of deflated and slashed characters including a Christmas bear and a snow globe. At least three homes were targeted in the beachside community, police said.
“They were ruined, ripped up. My kids saw them too and wondered what had happened,” said Williams, who decorated his yard with inflatable reindeer, penguins, a striped candy cane archway and even a little Minion – a character from the "Despicable Me" series of animated movies.
"We're going to get some more," Williams said.
Such acts of criminal mischief are rare, but do occur, according to police. Earlier this month, someone stole a giant Minion inflatable in nearby Palm Bay.
Williams said his family had lived in the neighborhood for seven years without any problems.
“These are being classified as vandalisms and it was probably just kids," said Cmdr. Bert Berrios of the Satellite Beach Police Department. "It’s basically idle hands. And it’s also very dangerous because you don’t know if someone feels threatened or may have a gun when they see something like this happening. The main thing, ask your neighbors to watch over neighbors."
Malcolm Denemark contributed to this report.