Witness: Vandal ‘slammed,’ ‘smashed’ Grand Rapids gravesites

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Neighbors of a Grand Rapids cemetery where a number of gravesites were vandalized Thursday evening said they are shocked and angered by the destruction.

Craig O’Neill’s nightly walk around 7 p.m. in Woodlawn Cemetery off Kalamazoo Avenue SE between Alger and 28th streets took a dramatic turn when he said he came upon the apparent vandal.

“I came around the back side and I saw with my own eyes the action of slamming down what looked like one of the flowerpots,” he told News 8 Friday. “A burst of sand exploded up. The I saw him pick up another one — this one clearly a statue of Mary — and smash that down.”

The damage included dozens of toppled gravestones, smashed flowerpots and dozens of destroyed depictions of the Virgin Mary, all in the southernmost loop of the west Woodlawn Cemetery.

Telling the suspected vandal to “knock it off,” O’Neill captured the man on video while following him and waiting for a response from the Grand Rapids Police Department. The two met face-to-face at facilities in nearby MacKay-Jaycee Park. There was nearly an altercation, O’Neill said, and the other man threatened him. O’Neill’s video captured the other man saying, “You wanna die?”

O’Neill told News 8 that the typically communal setting of the cemetery made what he saw even more shocking.

“This is where people run, walk, bike, and families walk with strollers,” he said of Woodlawn. “Every single night, I see different families mourning at the more recent gravesites. You get to kind of know them peacefully, silently. This is a very quiet neighborhood… I’ve been here 20 years myself and raised my family here. This is very atypical of the Alger Heights area.”

The city’s parks department, which runs the cemetery, had representatives on site Friday morning taking down the family names of the damaged sites.

Grand Rapids police told News 8 they are looking into what happened. Anyone with information was asked to call them at 616.456.3400 or Silent Observer at 616.774.2345.

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