By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Two local teenagers were arrested in Red Bank Thursday after being caught spray-painting a downtown building, police said.
Thomas Ley, 18, of Rumson, was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and criminal trespassing, Captain Darren McConnell said. A 17-year-old male from Red Bank was also arrested and charged with the same crimes, McConnell said.
Police are also looking into whether the two may be involved in increased graffiti incidents within the borough the last two months.
McConnell said the teens were caught by a local business owner around 7 p.m. tagging a building’s wall adjacent to Hamilton Jewelers on Broad Street.
“They were standing on the roof painting the wall,” he said.
The tag read ‘scum,’ which has popped up in about six locations through town, he said, leading police to believe the teenagers may have vaNdalized other places in Red Bank.
The Red Bank borough council recently said Riverside Gardens Park was vandalized in the past week, and intend to work with public works director Gary Watson to heighten security or somehow protect the park from defacement. McConnell said it isn’t clear if the incidents are related to the arrests Thursday.
“We’re looking into everything,” McConnell said. “Some of these are similar to this, some of them are not.”
