Abbotsford experiences vandalism, suspects found

The Colby-Abbotsford Police Department had a busy weekend investigating a series of vandalisms in the Colby and Abbotsford area. The department responded to at least three reports of residents’ vehicles being egged and paintballed. The first complainant did not have any suspects and did not know why her vehicle and garage would have been paintballed. However, as the reports started to filter in, one of the officers thought it might have something to do with Abbotsford Homecoming.

The officer talked to school resource officer Patrick Leichtnam to see if he had heard anything about kids paintballing residents’ cars and garages. A few hours later, Leichtnam called the officer stating they had three suspects in the principal’s office at the Abbotsford school. The officer went to the school and found that Officer Leichtnam had found an identical paintball to one that had been found at the scene of one of the vandalisms. The vehicle also matched the description of a vehicle that was described to the officer as being at one of the scenes. One of the students opened up his vehicle for officer Leichtnam and two paintball guns and a carton of eggs were found inside.

The reporting officer attempted to speak with the students but they were hesitant to speak to the officers at first. They eventually admitted to driving around, paintballing and egging random cars. They said that they had done so many places in Abbotsford that they were not able to identify specifics. The officer told them about a similar incident reported in Colby and all three said they were doing all of the vandalism in Abbotsford but had never gone into Colby that night.

The students said that they heard there was another vehicle doing the same vandalism along with drawing on vehicles with permanent markers. One of the students said his vehicle had fallen victim to being vandalized by permanent marker as well but they did not know who was involved in the other vehicle.

Officer Leichtnam handled the students’ school punishment with their parents and said he would keep looking into finding out who was in the other suspected car. The matter is still under investigation.