Friday, February 27, 2015
Investigators Commended For Work On Coleman UMC Case
Two Lawrenceburg Police Department detectives were commended Thursday for their exceptional work in solving a recent vandalism case that resulted in thousands of dollars worth of damage to Coleman Memorial United Methodist Church.
Captain Don Laws of the department’s Criminal Investigation Division presented Investigators Michael Reeves and Blake Arnold with letters of commendation during a meeting of the Lawrenceburg Board of Mayor and Council Thursday morning.
The pair was commended for “going beyond normal duties to find these suspects.” Laws explained, “Investigators had very little evidence to go on. A video was collected at the fellowship hall area that allowed them to see the race of the person involved and approximate body size.
Investigators were able to take what little evidence they had and, within a few days, develop suspects and make arrests. I personally watched these investigators work long hours on this case, to bring closure to the many victims from this church congregation…I’d like to commend you for a job well done.”
Coleman Pastor Rickey Wade addressed those assembled. He said that because of the caustic nature of the fire extinguisher chemicals expelled inside the building, damages were much more extensive than originally believed. He explained, “The design of our building uses the overhead between the suspended ceiling and the actual structural part of the building as the return for the HVAC system.
That’s standard construction practice for a building of that type. But what it did – when those fire extinguishers were discharged on those floors it pulled that fire extinguisher dust into the overhead as well, contaminating not only the occupied space of the building but also the unoccupied space of the building, affecting the structural system, the HVAC system and all of the electrical wiring of the building.
All of our ceiling tiles had to be replaced…much of the structural system had to be cleaned…So it became a lot more extensive than we had originally imagined – a lot more extensive.” He said that damages had totaled some $96,000.
To Reeves and Arnold Wade said, “On behalf of the people of Coleman Memorial we would simply like to say thank you - for the community support, for the work of the LPD, the speed with which this was done. It’s helping us to move on past this and get once again engaged in the ministry that we feel like God is calling us to do… I do think that the speed with which this has been put to rest will go a long way in maybe helping to curtail anybody’s ideas of doing something like this in the future. I think that it speaks to the community that if you do this you’re going to get caught and you will have to answer for it.”
Wade said that the church is trying to look at this as “a teachable moment.” He explained, “One of the young men has reached out to the church. He has offered an apology for what he has done and he has asked to speak with me…I intend to contact him…From my position as a pastor of the church, I’m more than willing to talk with these young men, work with these young men and just see if there’s not a positive way of moving forward.
Of course they need to answer for what they’ve done, but I think it behooves us on behalf of the church and the Lord that we serve to be able to say ‘how can we move forward together? How can we grow together?’ Is there a possibility that the church can now say to these young men ‘hey, there’s a better way to live, there’s a different way to live than what you’ve been doing, and if we can help you do that, we want to do that.’”
