CLINTON — Police are investigating an act of vandalism in which the windows of two Central Maine Power Co. trucks were smashed and items were stolen from them, causing thousands of dollars’ worth of loss.
Clinton police Officer Phillip DiLuca, who was the responding officer, said the incident occurred either Wednesday night or Thursday morning.
Two CMP service trucks were parked off Route 23 near a set of power lines. DiLuca said the workers had left the trucks there after they had finished working for the day, and when they returned the next morning, they discovered the vehicle windows had been smashed and radio equipment had been stolen or broken. He said the trucks had been left there because the workers were working on the power lines.
DiLuca said it appeared the vandals threw rocks at the truck windows before stealing things such as radio equipment and fire extinguishers. Those vehicles can be worth up $500,000 he said, and repairs can be expensive.
“We have been working with some evidence on the scene,” DiLuca said.
DiLuca said the suspects probably were repeat offenders, having committed of other acts of vandalism.
“We do have some suspects right now, and the suspects we have are the ones I anticipated from working the road and knowing the area,” he said.
He said CMP will have to do an assessment of the damage, but DiLuca said he estimated the damage to be worth thousands of dollars. The area the trucks were in was far off the main road, he said, so the department is hoping for community assistance in finding the vandals. He said while Clinton is a small community, there has been a vandalism problem in the town, including broken doors and windows.
“Things like that do happen frequently enough to be an issue we’re trying to address very seriously,” he said. He said working with the community is an efficient way to solve the crimes.
Earlier this year, vandals targeted dairy farms in the area by releasing hundreds of cows from their pens in the middle of the night.
DiLuca said this was the first time in his experience that CMP trucks had been the targets of vandals. He said it was “weird” for someone to want to deface CMP property, as that affects the company’s ability to deliver power, and that affects everyone. He said vandalizing the power supply was “quite a big deal.” However, he said that was just another instance of ongoing vandalism in town.
“Vandalism is a reoccurring thing in Clinton,” he said.
Colin Ellis — 861-9253
cellis@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @colinoellis
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.