A 16-year-old boy was arrested in Fairfax County last week after police caught him spray painting a loading dock, authorities said, adding that he has been linked to over 50 cases of graffiti and property damage.
On Wednesday morning, Fairfax County Police Department officers were called to the 6000 block of Virginia State Route 643 in Burke, because people found hateful graffiti on multiple properties in the area, FCPD said in a release.
Police did not specify what messages were written, but the Rev. Becca Messman of the Burke Presbyterian Church told WJLA-TV that some of the graffiti that was scrawled on her church was antisemitic in nature.
Other graffiti, according to photos taken by WJLA, consisted of racial slurs and profanity, and Ms. Messman said another church near hers had been defaced by “expletives and terribly racist words.”
On Thursday night, FCPD officers responded to another part of Burke after more graffiti and vandalism was reported and found the 16-year-old suspect, who has not been publicly identified beyond his sex, spray-painting the loading dock of a local business, FCPD said.
According to police, he also had spray paint on his hands and clothes, and more spray-paint cans in his possession. Police also showed a hammer they say he used to smash windshields and destroy property earlier on Thursday night.
He was released to his family and is now being investigated in other instances of destroyed property in the West Springfield area.
All in all, police believe he is responsible for over 50 combined instances of graffiti and vandalism. At least 37 of the instances of destroyed property occurred in less than six hours in an area of about five square miles, Deputy Chief Gregory Fried said according to WTOP-FM.
There was about $3,500 of property damage incurred Thursday, said Deputy Chief Fried, who leads Fairfax County’s Criminal Investigation Cyber and Forensics Bureau.
The teen has been charged on seven counts of destruction of property and one count of larceny, related to one of the paint cans.
