Yesterday evening I was birding at Kenilworth Park in DC and had my car broken
into and several windows shattered.
I arrived at the park about 6:45pm and passed six older teenagers walking into
the park. I thought nothing of it and dorve into the park and parked my car
along the road halfway between the two parking lots. I walked down to the main
Kenilworth Marsh, looking for Blue-winged Teal and perhaps Sora (one can always
hope). After walking along the field edges and observing at the marsh for about
30 minutes, I started walking back toward my car. When my head crested the
small hill leading from the marsh, I saw from about 500 yards away that the
doors of my car were hanging open, and the teenagers were nearby rifling through
the contents of my work bagtaken from the locked car.
I called 911, and the DC police arrived about 2 minutes later. The teens had
sauntered off to the back (south) part of the park beyond the jersey barriers,
and the two DC police officers chased them for some time, but did not catch
them. A Park Police officer arrived a minute later(Kennilworth Park is not
currently in the jurisdiction of the DC Police, but rather the US Park Police;
the irony of this is that DC police are often seen in the park, but rarely Park
Police).
My car was severely damaged. A large stone was used to attempt to break all six
car windows, succeeding in shattering two and ruining all of them, as well as
leaving dents all around from stone richochets. There was nothing much of value
in the car except the bag, from which they stole a digital cameraand a valuable
antique pen. (I guess the Sibley Guide to Birds of Eastern North America doesn't
rate highly on the stolen goodsmarket).
By the look of the damage to all windows, I would say this was an act of
vandalism in addition to an attempt to steal from a car. It was also
particularly brazen, given that they were two cars in sight with people around
them parked in the first and second parking lots. The incident happened about
7:10pm in full daylight, in sight of other people in the park. I also managed
to get a couple of faraway photographs of the perpetrators, which I attach below.
I have been to Kenilworth park hundreds of times in the past three years, and
have never run into anything like this before. There are often cars that are
parked there with people in them that look sketchy, and it is easy to avoid the
park at these times and come back another time, or to bird in a different part
of the park. I will now have to re-evaluate my approach--I don't like to be
inherently suspicious of any group of teenagers I see walking through a park,
but perhaps I should be more so from now on. In retrospect, they were an
unusual looking and acting group that should have set off more precaution on my
part, but I was too busy anticipating Teal and Sora and Yellowlegs to give them
proper attention.
Be careful out there,
-Wayne Baumgartner
Washington, DC
PS- here is a link to the pictures I tookof the incident under sub-optimal
conditions:
https://picasaweb.google.com/whbaumga/KenilworthParkVandalism?authkey=Gv1sRgCN27ya3B-sSPywE#
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