By David Chesanow, JTNews Correspondent
Although four adults have been questioned in connection with last summer’s vandalism on Bainbridge Island, Police Chief Bill Cooper said last Thursday that the investigation has not yet progressed to prosecution.
Earlier this month Cooper said that four adults — three in their late teens and one in his early twenties — had been questioned in connection with the incidents. None of the four admitted to wrongdoing and “most of them have retained lawyers” and are not speaking to the police, “which is their right,” Cooper said. “So at this point the case is ongoing, but we do not have a prosecutable case.”
Bainbridge lsland has been the scene of a number of hate-related incidents in recent years. In July, headstones marking Jewish graves in the Port Blakely Cemetery were overturned and a swastika painted at the cemetery entrance. On Aug. 6, the words “white pride” were spray-painted on the Filipino-American Community Hall driveway. And on Aug. 9, the Port Blakely Cemetery was struck again when 69 gravestones of people of different religions and ethnic backgrounds were knocked over and in some cases shattered. Jewish gravestones were not touched in that incident.
Cooper said he was “confident” that three of the four persons questioned were involved in the incidents, “but we’re not sure, of the four, which ones it is.” Asked to elaborate on his suspicions, Cooper replied: “In the large number of people we’ve talked to…the same names keep coming up. These [informants] are people who are not related to each other.” He noted that there were suggestions that alcohol use was a factor in the vandalism.
Cooper also indicated that he was “more than average certain” that the same individuals had perpetrated both cemetery incidents, although no link to the graffiti at the Filipino-American Community Hall has been established. There are no leads in that case, he said.
While a detective is working on the cases full-time, Cooper explained that “Right now, we don’t have the evidence to make an arrest, much less prosecute…. To be honest, we’re not having a lot of success, but we’re going to keep after it.”
Kären Ahern, head of the Bainbridge Island Unity Coalition, commented: “The entire community wants whoever’s responsible [for the vandalism] caught, arrested, and prosecuted…. They need to pay for damages; they need to learn that this is not tolerated in our community; and there are very loving individuals who would like to work with them on a one-on-one basis to teach them to respect alI cultures and property and the graves of ancestors…
“We don’t want high-paid lawyers to stop justice for our community,” she added.