Vandalism in Wicker Park occurs again, police too busy to take damage report

UPDATED:

'Wicker Park is important to us and what happened is not acceptable," said Commander Linda Flores, 14th Police District, to Our Urban Times. "I am investigating what happened but we are never too busy to take a report. This is not acceptable."

With humid mist hovering over the grass at about 9:30 a.m. Sunday, Denise Browning on her way to the Farmers Market walked through the Wicker Park Gardens, where she spends hundreds of volunteer hours twelve months a year. She had a hard time comprehending what she saw...plants torn from planters, dirt in and around the fountain and piles of plants ripped from ground beds.

"Ten to twelve-year-old sago palms were torn from four black urns around the fountain, two of the palms were gone and the other two broken and hanging from the urns," said Browning, co-creator of the Wicker Park Gardens, a member of the Wicker Park Garden Club and the past co-president of the Wicker Park Advisory Committee . "Flowers by the field house were torn out and thrown into a pile. The plants in one of eight white urns around the fountain were ripped out and tossed into the black urns. The gardens surrounding the fountain had been ripped up and trampled, with dirt scattered over the walkway and in the fountain.

"I asked two men sitting near the garden if they had seen anything. They told me that they had seen three thin Caucasian men and a woman in their late 20s between 5:30 and 6 a.m. When they told them to stop damaging the gardens, the vandals ran away taking palms with them. One of the vendors confirmed that he too saw three men and a woman leaving the park at that time.

"It takes a lot of money to replace those plants. It's a lot of labor and time lost. These plantings are all done by volunteers."

Browning called 311 to file a damage report at 9:58 a.m. and was transferred by the operator to the 911 police operator. She explained the damage to the gardens and was told to wait for police to arrive.

Doug Wood, co-creator of the Wicker Park Gardens, a member of the Wicker Park Garden Club and the secretary and events coordinator of the Wicker Park Advisory Committee, said Chicago Park District security arrived around 11 a.m. "I told him that I wanted to file a damage report and that Denise had called 311 who connected her to 911. He told me to 'call 911 back and ask if the police are coming because you're waiting to file a damage report. They'll probably take the report over phone.'"

Wood said, "Though I tried to follow his suggestion, I had to do the whole report again because the 911 operator wanted to know why I didn't call 311 and then wouldn't look up the previous call. She went thru all the question including what I was wearing." After another hour a police officer arrived. "He asked, 'Why didn't you call 311?' I told him we did, but they transferred us to 911," Wood said. "I pointed to the damage but the officer kept repeating, I'm having a very, very busy day. Why didn't you call 311?' Finally I said that I was sorry if I was wasting his time and if he had to go I would try to find another way to file the report and he walked away," Wood said.

Clean-up will include re-planting the remaining plants, purchasing new plants and removing the dirt from the fountain. Cleaning the fountain requires hours to drain it, clean out the dirt and re-fill the basin.  This will take park district staff time and volunteers' time.  "Then you have to explain to volunteers why they should raise all the money and do all the work," he said. "I'm so disgusted."

The park was not a safe place years ago, Browning said. "When we started doing the gardens people felt it was safe to come in," she said. Now Wicker Park has extreme usage.  Thousands of people visit the award winning Park every week.  Those visits include late night revelers who take their partying from local establishments into the Park.

This is not the first vandalism to the Park. Toppling the Wicker statue cost $16,000 to restore. Recently the restored statue was tagged. Realizing the ever decreasing budgets in the City's police department and the Chicago Park District, the Wicker Park Advisory Council already began soliciting monies to install security camera. The filing of the damage report is in support of their efforts to assist the Police and Park District.