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Teens vandalize Pleasant Valley church ballfields

A local church’s fields were vandalized on Friday afternoon, resulting in what could amount to thousands of dollars in damage.

The baseball fields adjoining Pleasant Valley Presbyterian Church in Brodheadsville suffered extensive damage from three vehicles driving on the grass.Church secretary Christine Diabo witnessed the destruction when she returned to the church lot to retrieve her car.“I was shopping with a friend of mine, and when I came back to pick up my car, there were three cars parked in the parking lot near the ballfield,” Diabo said.“They were just sitting there for a little while, and then two of the cars went up the hill, and they came flying down the hill as fast as they could. They were rolling through the ball field. They did it numerous times, I sat here and probably watched them for about 25 minutes.”Diabo said that she saw three vehicles, two Audis and a blue Subaru, and that at one point, two of the drivers approached the other suspect’s vehicle and checked under his car’s hood.Fern Ridge State Police Trooper Gabriel A. Saracino responded to a call in the early evening. The call was likely placed by a neighbor in the secluded area.“One of the suspects was there,” Saracino said in regard to his arrival on the scene.Saracino said that the investigation is ongoing, and a meeting would be held on Monday night.Diabo said that the church has never seen damage of this scale before.“It was clear they were just having fun, but they were doing a tremendous amount of damage to the ball field,” Diabo said. “A number of times I thought they were going to flip over, they were going so fast.”On Monday evening, Bill Cletus Campbell of the Pleasant Valley Presbyterian Church said that three of the four teenagers had been Identified. According to Campbell, the church will be meeting with the West End Little League, which uses the fields, in addition to witnesses, the offenders, and their families to discuss the incident.

The baseball fields adjoining Pleasant Valley Presbyterian Church in Brodheadsville were heavily damaged by three suspects allegedly joy-riding on the grass on Friday evening. BRIAN W. MYSZKOWSKI