Teen vandals to repaint Midway buildings after graffiti spree

Midway RCMP say they’ve spoken to two teens who vandalized a village church and two other buildings. Both will be put through a restorative justice process, as per the victims’ requests, Cpt. Phil Peters said.

Peters said the vandalism got underway late Thursday night, Aug. 26, when an 18-year-old Nelson man and a 19-year-old Midway woman spray-painted vulgar graffiti on the King of Kings Church on 9th Street, Boundary Central Secondary School on 5th Street and an aircraft hangar at the Midway Airport on the east side of the Kettle River, near the Village Office on 8th Avenue.

Pictures of the graffiti show a set of horns and a serpent’s tail drawn at the top and bottom of a crucifix on the wall of the church.

Mark Danyluk, Pastor at Kings of Kings, expressed mixed feelings in a Friday interview with The Times.

“On one level, I feel violated,” he said. He then voiced compassion and concern for marginalized Canadians, qualifying that Thursday’s vandalism, “gives us a foretaste of what others should never experience at all, but which they endure all too often.”

The teens also scrawled, “Sh*t sorry I thought this was a canvas (sic.)” around a crudely rendered flower pot spray-painted on the airport hangar. The tag “BBPWK” was also scrawled in big pink letters on a wall at the high school, which Peters also attributed to the suspect.

Perhaps the most involved graffito attempts to lend humour to a property crime at Midway Airport. Photo: Submitted (image blurred)

Peters said he decided against recommending mischief charges because neither teen had a prior criminal record. Both will have to paint over their graffiti as part of the restorative justice process, he said.