The Bliss Park playground in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, where earlier this year four children were injured by hydrochloric acid poured down slides (Picture: AP)
Two underage juveniles have been charged for pouring acid down playground slides in Massachusetts.
The terrifying incident took place in June and left four children playing on the equipment at Bliss Park injured.
Police, firefighters, and a hazmat team rushed to the playground in Longmeadow, a town in western Massachusetts, after a mother reported a mysterious liquid on the playground left her children with ‘burn-like’ injuries.
Ashley Thielen, the mother who made the horrifying discovery, told Western Mass News that she assumed the liquid at the bottom of the slide was rainwater.
‘I didn’t really think much of it, and then, my baby, who is one, just started crying,’ she said.
An investigation revealed that vandals had broken into a maintenance shed nearby, where they stole the supply of hydrochloric acid used to clean the park’s pool.
‘Two fences had been climbed and a cover to a ventilation shaft was torn off,’ the Longmeadow Fire Department said in a statement. ‘The perpetrators entered the room through the ventilation shaft.’
The vandals then poured the acid down three different slides at the playground.
Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gullumi announced the arrests on Thursday, over four months after the children were injured.
‘The Longmeadow Police Department and Longmeadow Fire Department along with my office’s Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit did a remarkable job in investigating this shocking and terrible incident,’ the district attorney said.
The two youths, who have not been identified due to their status as minors, were charged with four counts each of assault and battery on child with injury, assault and battery with dangerous weapon, and vandalism.
‘Our collective effort to charge those we believe are responsible should make clear that protecting this community’s children is among our highest priorities,’ DA Gullumi said. ‘Whether the threat and harm caused were intended as pranks or malicious acts, it will not be tolerated.’
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‘Whether the threat and harm caused were intended as pranks or malicious acts, it will not be tolerated.’