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| Inmates Clean Up Dumont Park Graffiti |
| By The Fall River Herald |
| Published: 04/03/2006 |
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The 130 city children who play in Massachusetts' Fall River National Little League at Dumont Park may be able to do so without the influence of gangs using the park as their turf. Five Bristol County House of Correction inmates spent most of the days last week painting over gang graffiti found on the dugouts in the park. The dugouts had recently been targeted by city gangs as a place to spray their dangerous messages to one another. During a visit last week, gang monikers and Crips gang-related threats were found all over the park. Fall River National Little League board member Matt Franco also noticed the degradation of the park last week, and said he was "heart-broken." But Franco took his concerns to Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson. The sheriff immediately informed his graffiti removal unit of the problem and they visited the park to take a look at what needed to be done. Hodgson said the park was so overrun with gang graffiti that his unit decided it was best to just repaint the dugouts instead of removing each piece of gang graffiti. Franco's exchange with Hodgson changed his mind about the sometimes controversial sheriff, and said he was impressed with how quickly he "got on top of the situation." "I spoke to the sheriff and he got right on the horn for us. I was really impressed," Franco said. "It broke my heart to see what these gangs had done to our park. We were so close to the season and it was really frustrating to think our kids were going to have to deal with this stuff. It's really out of control." Franco said he is also pleased to see inmates giving back to the community in such a positive way. "I'm on cloud nine. This is really excellent," Franco said. "These guys made some mistakes in their lives, but it must give them a great feeling to help us out like this. "This is so nice because now we can focus on baseball instead of gang-graffiti." Franco also encouraged others to get more involved and contact the authorities when they see gang-graffiti began to pop up. Hodgson agreed, but said residents should first contact city officials before making an attempt to contact his office. "We just don't want to duplicate efforts. So it's best if they call the city first. But if they don't get anywhere with that, they can certainly contact us," Hodgson said. "The last thing any of us want is to have our kids and their parents dealing with gangs." |
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