A group of juveniles took responsibility over the weekend for an incident (reported HERE on YW) that left several graves in a Jewish cemetery damaged by paint-balls. The four 12- and 13-year-old boys, accompanied by their parents, came forward to the Brattleboro Police on Saturday and admitted they had taken part in a paintball fight in the Congregation Shir He Harim Cemetery last week.

“We are sorry about the cemetery. We had no intention of vandalism or harming any grave,” the letter reads. “We weren’t thinking when we played there and in the middle of our game we had thoughts about changing our location due to the graves but got caught up in the moment.”

A gravestone in the cemetery was also broken off and overturned earlier in the week, though police believe that was a separate incident. In their letter, the juveniles denied involvement with the latter incident.

“While we did not topple any of the graves we accept full responsibility for the paintball incident. We plan to clean up our mess and feel bad about it,” they wrote.

According to Brattleboro Police Lt. Jeremy Evans, the juveniles agreed to clean up the damage and apologize to the BAJC. He said they would likely not be charged.

(Reformer)