Three of four teenage boys were identified by a surveillance camera as pool hoppers using a swimming pool and leaving garbage, including beer cans, on the property of a home over a two week period, Darien police said.
A fountain on the property had also been damaged, but police didn’t have evidence to charge anyone with that, and the boys denied they had anything to do with it, police said.
Darien police provided this additional information about the matter, including accusations not proven in court:
The groundskeeper of a property on the 500 block of Middlesex Road, across the street from the town’s Highland Farm property, contacted police at 8:48 a.m., Saturday, July 27.
He said that for the previous two weeks someone had been using the swimming pool and leaving garbage on the property. He also said damage had been done to a piece of a fountain on the grounds.
Police were shown a surveillance video showing four males in the pool from about midnight to 2 a.m. that morning. They were close enough to the camera that their faces were clear, and police were able to identify three of the four.
Police contacted them and their parents, and issued citations for trespassing to each teenager, all of whom were under the age of 18. They denied having anything to do with the fountain being damaged, and they weren’t charged for that. Police did tell them that they were not to return to the property again.
This incident was listed as “vandalism” on the CrimeMapping.com feature of the Darien Police Department website.
When Darienite.com questioned a police spokesman about the incident, asking for details (since the report had been left out of last week’s police briefing news release), Darienite.com was told it was an incident of teenagers pool hopping. In fact, the vandalism was reported on the department’s website, the trespassing wasn’t.