On April 10th, Mesquite Detectives were able to solve an ongoing graffiti problem by catching the vandal in the act. Over the course of the last several months, the Police Department had been receiving complaints about rude and vulgar statements being written with sidewalk chalk on the Mesquite trail system. The written statements were usually regarding religion and politics. The statements were vulgar enough to offend those reading them, and to be considered as defacing public property. Due to the complaints the Mesquite Police Department received, and the defacing of public property, an investigation was initiated.
On April 10th, at approximately 7:30 A.M., the suspect was caught while in the act of writing another offensive statement, by police detectives.
Bonnie Kruder, 61, of Mesquite Nevada, was arrested and charged with: One misdemeanor count of placing graffiti. Additional graffiti charges are pending the completion of the investigation into the numerous other graffiti incidents.
Old enough to know better.
I am no fan of Ms. Kruder, however, this is not newsworthy in that it is a misdemeanor and more about gossip than anything else. In other words this is small town politics at it’s worst.
We ignore the increase in gang activity and the graffiti it brings with it in paint and not chalk. We ignore much more serious issues and choose to make an example of one.
I find it all disgusting. There is some real reporting that could be done if MLN didn’t just phone it in.
With all due respect Connie, you know we are a small paper with a small staff and we rely heavily on the city officials, police and fire departments, organizations and private individuals to give us the information we need, the phone seems to be a great way of receiving it. We also receive news by email.
The gossip was what was going around town with speculation as to “Who dunnit.” Forgive me for correcting you but this sort of report ends the gossip rather than adds to it. Now people know who has been doing this for the past SEVERAL MONTHS on a public trailhead that the entire community is supposed to enjoy. She should know better and could have perhaps found a better way to express herself.
Did you read, “Additional graffiti charges are pending the completion of the investigation into the numerous other graffiti incidents.” It’s not just one case, and don’t the people complaining have the right to know that this will now stop and they can go back to enjoying what is rightfully theirs to enjoy without being offended or insulted? Do you think that being held accountable for her actions might stop it from happening again in the future? Obviously she didn’t want to be known. It’s the same with posting comments…freedom of speech is a wonderful thing but own what you say. They made the example of one because there was only one to make an example of this time…..they also made an example of the 4 drug dealers they caught…any complaints there?
Perhaps you can enlighten us as to the more important issues…we’ve covered drugs, hydrants, city council, water district, community events, new business, job training….what would you like to see us cover? I’m sure the people who made the complaints about the graffiti thought it was a pretty important issue to report and apparently so did the police or they wouldn’t have sent us the release….can’t please everyone
If you had read the press release you would see that it isn’t a simple case of graffiti. What would you think if your grandchild had come across some of those offensive words.
I couldn’t have said it any better than Teri did. We don’t decide the news. We report the news.
You need to TAKE THIS DOWN and/or put a retraction in that no further charges were made since there was NO INDICATION that the vulgar and offensive graffiti posts were made by Ms. Kruder. I believe ALL CHARGES WERE DROPPED. Why is this not included in any follow-up/update to this post?
Ann,
We do not “take down” archived articles and we can’t “unprint” what has already been printed. This was released by the Mesquite Police Department; it’s up to them to send us information they want removed. There is not an update because we never received an update and this isn’t the type of “police” case that we would normally follow up on. This was a post from over a year ago, why is it just now being challenged?
I’ve spoken with Ms. Kruder about writing a LTE about her case if she would like to be absolved. She is still free to write that LTE or you may write it on her behalf if you are so concerned about the follow up to minor police matters.