Vandals

School officials are deciding what punishment three Mount Hebron High School students will receive after they were arrested in a break-in at the school, painted racist symbols inside the building and stole $5,200 in property. The 15-year-old boys, who all attend the school, are charged as minors with second- and fourth-degree burglary, two counts of malicious destruction of property, 13 counts of theft, and defacing school property with hate messages in the break-in, which occurred Dec. 6. One of the teens was arrested Dec. 11. The other two were arrested Monday.

Fifteen Anne Arundel County school bus routes were delayed Monday morning after the discovery that several school buses were damaged by apparent vandalism, police and school officials said. Police were dispatched to the 1400 block of Odenton Road, a lot where school buses are parked, and found that the electrical lines of 14 buses had been cut, said Justin Mulcahy, a police spokesman. "The buses were all inoperable," said Mulcahy. "It looks like the electrical lines were cut, unfortunately."

As detectives continue to search for burglars who vandalized a Brooklyn Park hair salon with racist messages and symbols, the shop's owner said she expects not to reopen for two months. Investigators from the Anne Arundel County Fire Department were there Monday, asked by county police to identify what may be gasoline or other flammable liquid used to soak the Heavenly Hands Unisex Salon over the weekend. "Everything is so saturated. The chairs are saturated with the gasoline," owner Sharanda Brown said Monday, noting it would take at least a week to begin figuring out what in the salon is too soaked or fume-laden to be salvaged.

Anne Arundel County police are investigating a burglary over the weekend that left a Brooklyn Park hair salon defaced with racist messages and swastikas. Police said in a statement that they believe a single person was responsible for the break-in at Heavenly Hands Unisex Salon. They called the crime an "apparent arson attempt" - gasoline or some other combustible liquid was poured everywhere, including in the hair dryers. Whoever broke in also stole a computer and several other items.

THE PROBLEM:: "Easy Park" machines in Fells Point have been vandalized, making their hours of operation a mystery. THE BACK STORY:: Watchdog seeks enlightenment. Why would anyone want to tamper with the hours-in-effect stickers on the parking machines on South Broadway in Fells Point? What purpose does this serve, other than to confuse the public and drain people's wallets? On several occasions, Watchdog has spotted machines on South Broadway near Pratt Street and at Aliceanna Street that have their hours-of-operation stickers either gouged out, scraped off or simply colored in with a black marker.

There's no question that Baltimore County has experienced an increase in vandalism in its parks in recent years. Some of it - setting fire to playgrounds or bathrooms, for instance - is alarming, but most of it falls into a less dire category of graffiti and petty crime, an all-too-familiar problem not only in urban areas and national parks but in small-town America as well. That doesn't make it acceptable behavior, of course, but does it justify spending $600,000 on "smart" cameras to keep five of the county's regional parks under constant video surveillance?

Vandals intent on spray painting Baltimore County's artificial turf fields, defacing park property and destroying playgrounds will soon find themselves captured on camera. The County Council has authorized $600,000 to install 24-hour video surveillance cameras at five regional parks and at athletic fields that have frequently been the targets of vandals. "We have too much investment in these parks to let vandals have their way," said Robert J. Barrett, county director of recreation and parks.

A Howard County restaurant that was vandalized last month in an apparent protest against the serving of foie gras has been hit again. Steve Wecker, co-owner of the Iron Bridge Wine Company in Columbia, said Monday that no references were made this time to foie gras. But Wecker suspects that the vandals who broke a window and damaged one of the front doors of the Route 108 property were trying to convey the same message as those who spray-painted "Get rid of the foie gras" while breaking several windows and gluing the lock of the front door March 23. No one has been charged in that incident, police said Since the first incident, which caused an estimated $3,300 in damage, Wecker has added "Foie Gras Friday" to the restaurant's menu and has servers wearing T-shirts reading "Got Foie Gras?"

Jean Poholsky looks forward to dining at Iron Bridge Wine Co. for the upscale ambience as well as for the food. So when she arrived at the Columbia restaurant for lunch with friends Monday, she was shocked to see glass shards covering a stone walkway that had been spray-painted in red with the words "Get rid of the foie gras." An admitted lover of the French delicacy made from the livers of ducks and geese, Poholsky concurred with the restaurant's owners that whoever was responsible for the overnight vandalism could have expressed their opinion differently.

Vandals gained access to two construction loaders that were parked behind a Glen Burnie fraternal lodge Friday night or yesterday morning, then flipped over vehicles, destroyed equipment, mangled a fence surrounding a baseball field and smashed open a back wall of the lodge. The owners of two businesses that stored equipment and vehicles in the back parking lot of the Glen Burnie Moose Lodge No. 1456 said they suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses as a result of the vandalism.