Bro, this man is so far beyond stupid I'm gonna go ahead and HOPE he's on drugs.
Dude cut down a Jackie Robinson statue for scrap metal, and then when he tried to melt it down in a trash can so that nobody could recognize it, he ended up just ruining the thing.
(Man, they must have some great crack in Wichita.)
Surveillance footage showed three individuals at the scene when the statue was cut down, though only one man, 45-year-old Ricky Alderete, has been arrested in connection with the theft. You can tell by the photo here just how interesting of a character Alderete might be.
I kid you not, this is the story:
A suspect has been arrested and charged in connection with the theft and destruction of a statue of baseball legend Jackie Robinson that was stolen from a Kansas park last month, authorities announced on Tuesday.
The statue was discovered missing from McAdams Park in Wichita on Jan. 25, with Robinson's feet the only part that remained. Pieces of the statue were found days later, on Jan. 30, in a burning trash can in Garvey Park, authorities said.
A suspect in the incident -- 45-year-old Ricky Alderete -- was charged by the Sedgwick County district attorney on Monday with felony theft, aggravated criminal damage to property, identity theft and making false information, the Wichita Police Department said.
Police are 'very confident' that this is not a race-related crime, according to Wichita Police Department Lt. Aaron Moses. Rather, the statue was allegedly stolen for the potential financial value of the metal, he said.
Okay, so the price of bronze is about $2.40/lb right now, and let's just assume the statue weighed 200 pounds (it seemed pretty big and almost life-sized). That's $480 bucks, enough to buy 3.5 grams of crack, which is barely a day's worth of the stuff, especially if you split it three ways.
So this is for sure a "c'mon man" moment. Like, what were these guys thinking? Answer: They weren't; they were on drugs. They had to have been on drugs, I'm not even trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.
The statue was built by artist John Parsons and installed in 2021. It was donated to the community by League 42, a nonprofit named after Robinson's number with the Brooklyn Dodgers, which aims to introduce baseball to the youth of Wichita. The damage was estimated by city officials to be around $75,000.
A little silver lining here: A GoFundMe page has been set up for the statue's replacement and has already raised $300,000. So the community might actually see some improvements of the baseball complex as a result of this crime, which is actually kind of cool.
Still, I can't believe somebody would steal a Jackie Robinson statue just for the scrap metal.
It's sad to say, but this story would've made a lot more sense if it was a racist crime and they were burning the statue because they were white supremacists or something. But no, just a bunch of drugged up regular, non-racist losers accidentally destroying a statue of one of the best baseball players to ever play the game.
What a bunch of dummies!
Here's some local news coverage of the incident:
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