{"id":9116,"date":"2015-10-27T22:00:29","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T05:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/vandals-hit-old-sitka-cemetery-3rd-time-in-recent-weeks\/"},"modified":"2015-10-27T22:00:29","modified_gmt":"2015-10-28T05:00:29","slug":"vandals-hit-old-sitka-cemetery-3rd-time-in-recent-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/vandals-hit-old-sitka-cemetery-3rd-time-in-recent-weeks\/","title":{"rendered":"Vandals hit old Sitka cemetery 3rd time in recent weeks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>ANCHORAGE \u2014<\/strong> Vandals have struck a 200-year-old Russian Orthodox and Alaska Native cemetery in Sitka for the third time in recent weeks, toppling marble headstones weighing hundreds of pounds.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the tombstones at the site date back to the 1800s. Between the three vandalism incidents at least 10 headstones sustained significant damage, Sitka police Lt. Lance Ewers said Tuesday. The latest vandalism occurred overnight Saturday and involved 25 tombstones.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s so disheartening,\u201d Ewers said. \u201cIt\u2019s so disturbing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He was among police, firefighters, students from the Alaska State Troopers\u2019 Sitka academy and others who turned out Monday night to put the headstones upright. People also quickly responded after the first two incidents, which were reported Sept. 13 and Sept. 22.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, cleanup participants also climbed trees to install new trail cameras. Ewers said older cameras had been installed after the second incident, but they were taken down after one of the cameras malfunctioned.<\/p>\n<p>Bob Sam, the cemetery\u2019s Tlingit caretaker, has tended to the 7-acre forested site for decades \u2014 three decades as an adult. He also spent about a decade as a child going there with his grandmother. At the time, she was unhappy with the condition of the cemetery, and he promised her he would take care of the site.<\/p>\n<p>Sam, who also was among those putting things back in place Monday, said the community responding to help clean has been a positive. But he doesn\u2019t understand the mindset of those responsible, how they could keep vandalizing the site repeatedly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of anger,\u201d Sam said. \u201cIt\u2019s a cemetery, and it\u2019s violence toward the helpless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Police are offering a $200 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible, according to Ewers. The amount of the award could be increased later, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ANCHORAGE \u2014 Vandals have struck a 200-year-old Russian Orthodox and Alaska Native cemetery in Sitka for the third time in recent weeks, toppling marble headstones weighing hundreds of pounds. Some of the tombstones at the site date back to the 1800s. Between the three vandalism incidents at least 10 headstones sustained significant damage, Sitka police [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9116"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}