LEE COUNTY, AL (WTVM) -
The Lee County Sheriff's Office and the Lee County Cemetery Preservation Commission have teamed up to stop reoccurring vandalism in rural county cemeteries.
"There are circumstances of desecration of grave sites where they'll literally break the headstones, they'll break the slabs, things of that nature and these cemeteries have literally been there for a couple hundred years," explains Sheriff Jay Jones of the Lee County Sheriff's Department.
As a result, the Sheriff's Department has placed dozens of hidden cameras around multiple rural cemeteries in order to catch vandals in the act.
After just a few months, the concealed surveillance has been a proven success.
"At one specific cemetery, County Line Cemetery east of Opelika, we were able to identify who was involved in apparently doing some of this damage and able to make some arrests," says Jones.
The Cemetery Preservation Commission is hopeful that this new security will stop the vandalism and they will be able to fix damage for the last time.
"Vandalism in a cemetery is a very sad crime; it's not a victimless crime. There are descendants of those people and it hurts when they go back and find this. Our community is important to us and we just don't want these things happening," explains commission member, Edna Ward.
If you are interested in helping repair the damage to the cemeteries, contact the Cemetery Preservation Commission at 334-745-6713.
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