Police looking for teens suspected of vandalizing Boys and Girls Club of Lynn

Police are searching for teens suspected of vandalizing the inside of the Boys and Girls Club of Lynn.

Middleton Police posted on Facebook that they believe teens entered the Boys and Girls Club on Essex Street and did "a significant amount of vandalism" to the inside of the building.

Police said the vandals took bats to the outside windows of the camp's rec hall, and also shattered the interior windows, smashing and tearing through every corner of the club.

The group made it even worse when they allegedly sprayed everything down with fire extinguishers.

"That damage is really bad," Middleton Police Detective Adam Maccini said. "We're talking thousands and thousands of dollars. They were in there for hours just destroying everything."

The damage done left Maccini at a loss for words.

"There was no sense whatsoever," Maccini said. "There was no motive, there was no rhyme or reasoning behind it."

Windows and vending machines were smashed, with sinks ripped from the walls and an office ransacked.

"This objective was just to harm, and that was very clear in what I saw," Maccini said.

Maccini's intuition told him the vandals are likely teenagers, pointing to the bike track marks left on the property and a shoe print encased in the scene, saturated in fire extinguisher dust.

Maccini said the hall was vandalized sometime between Saturday and Wednesday, and believes the vandals likely unknowingly uncovered their tracks.

"Everything of evidentiary value had greatly diminished because of the fire extinguisher.

"The worst part about it, you know how important it is for the kids," Brian Theirrien, the executive director of the Boys and Girls Club in Lynn, said.

The camp, which relies on donors and volunteers, is also attended by Middleton youth, and Theirrien said this time of the year is when they start preparing for the summer season.

Instead, they're forced to figure out a costly clean-up and what's even left for the kids.

"The first week of April, we always rally," Theirrien said. "We get all volunteers together, we're like, 'Let's make this camp ready to go.' When you open the door and see that, it takes the wind out of the sails."

The club operates the camp on 150 acres of Middleton woods. More than 200 campers attend, with about 120 kids from Lynn bused in daily from June through August, and about 90 kids from Middleton.

“70 percent single parent, low income households," Theirrien said. "This is their safe haven during the summer time. Most of these kids do not go on vacation."

So far, police have no leads or witnesses in their investigation.

Police asked anyone with information to come forward, and said anyone who may have seen anyone in the area at that time can give them a call.

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The department also asked parents to have a conversation with their teenage children if they live in the area, hoping to get answers about the incident.

Police said any information from parents will be kept confidential.

The camp has set up a fundraising page on GoFundMe to help with repairing the damage.

Cox Media Group