Police have laid charges in one of a string of vandalism cases that have taken place this summer.
Four 16-year-old boys have been charged with mischief under $5,000 and will make their first court appearances in early September. Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the boys cannot be named.
The charges stem from a night of destruction at W.D. Cuts School on Larose Drive June 18. Multiple doors at the school were spray painted, as well as the outside walls and some windows.
Cpl. Laurel Kading with the St. Albert RCMP said investigators were able to track down the culprits because they were captured on video surveillance.
Kading said the cameras were spray painted over, but not before the culprits were seen on video.
“The kids are in the camera view and then they spray paint over it,” she said.
She said school staff saw the video and didn’t recognize the students, but determined they were likely high school students.
“The school staff were able to get the video and take it to the high school staff.”
Kading said the boys have been arrested over the last two or three weeks, as officers managed to track them down and lay the charges.
She said they were released on bail conditions that bind them with a nightly curfew, require them to have no contact with each other and ban them from any local school except for attending classes.
St. Albert has seen a rash of vandalism at local schools this summer, and Kading said police are considering the possibility and continuing to investigate if these four may have been responsible for other incidents.