Teens caught vandalizing Sister Lakes Lions Club Park

DOWAGIAC, Mich. – 

Teens in Sister Lakes were caught on camera vandalizing a local park-and pulling down the security cameras put up to keep that park safe.

The Sister Lakes Lions Club Park is supposed to be a community space, with club members keeping it up for people to enjoy. But vandalism over the years has led to installing security cameras. 

“It’s frustrating to try to keep a nice place for the community, and have somebody try to destroy it,” said Judy Pullins, the president of the Sister Lakes Lions Club.

Unlike the vandalisms in the past years, the most recent one was caught on camera. 

The latest vandalism to the sister lakes lions club park--- isn’t going without repurcussions.

 “I hope that it will stop people, make them think ‘we could get caught, we could get in trouble for doing this and know that their actions will have reaction,” said Pullins. 

The footage shows three teens jumping in bushes, pulling down and even stabbing security cameras.

Brian Antisdel volunteered to donate and install the cameras around the park. He put up four cameras. The teens stole two of them and damaged the ones left. 

But for the Lions Club, catching the vandals in the act is an encouraging solution to an ongoing problem

“I feel great. I think it’s a fantastic start. To know that somebody’s there and who it is,” said Jack Gould with the Sister Lakes Lions Club.

Still, the damage will take several hours to fix.

“It’s probably 10 to 12 hours,” said Antisdel. “But I’m okay with that. The Lions Club needs it, the community needs it and we proved for a fact that it works.”

He says it’ll also cost somewhere around a thousand dollars.

Antisdel says he handed all the video over to police. The Van Buren County Sheriff’s department is investigating.