<bt>In the Longwood Knolls neighborhood of Burke, Catherine Beck hopes the cement cat garden ornament has nine lives, unlike the crape myrtle trees and several shrubs that were victims of vandals.
On the morning of Wednesday, July 28, Beck and her daughter opened the front door and saw the spot where the cat was, along with the shards of trees that were thrown around after vandals cut them down with saws.
"It's flagrant, abusive behavior," Catherine Beck said.
That morning, she called the police and reported the incident. So far, the police have no leads. Beck does remember some boys repeatedly cutting through her yard, and since she was planning on landscaping the yard, she tried to stop the pedestrian traffic.
"I got sworn at," Beck said. "There's a gang. They're into it together in packs."
The vandals caused about $600 in damage. The late-night rampage included a tree being cut down with a saw, bushes being smashed with large rocks that were removed from the garden, lawn planters being turned over, American flags and the cement cat garden ornament being stolen. If the cat is returned or replaced, Catherine Beck said that her daughter plans to keep it in her bedroom.
"Do I have to build a fortress around my house to be safe?" she asked.
THE NEIGHBORHOOD off Lee Chapel Road has a history of vandalism. Emilio Tavernise lives up the street and experienced the same level of violence about 18 months ago. Several rose bushes were uprooted, several boxwood bushes were yanked out of the ground and tossed on his front porch, and a dwarf southern magnolia tree was killed.
"Snapped it in half," Tavernise said.
He estimated his damage at $2,000.
"Everything is not well in this hoity-toity, upper-class neighborhood," Tavernise said.
Beck remembered a stabbing a few years ago, as well. Students got into an argument on a school bus and later returned with knives, but she had no details of the incident. Another time, a few doors down, a student was harassed, and a back porch on the house was partially burned.
Anthony DiNicola lives next to Beck and works late hours at the Villa Bella restaurant in Burke. He didn't see anything that night and hasn't experienced vandalism.
"Nothing like this happens in this neighborhood," DiNicola said.
The Longwood Knolls Homeowners Association distributed a flier addressing the vandalism at the Becks.
"This vandalism seems to be the hallmark of young teens," the flier stated, urging parents to take an active role.
Beck blames parent inaction as well and teens that go unsupervised.
"They need to understand now that you can't just do stuff and not be held accountable," Beck said.
Danny Wells and Steve Ponce live with their parents in Longwood Knolls. Ponce graduated from Lake Braddock Secondary in 2002 and is now at the University of Virginia, and Wells graduated from Mountainview High School. They wrote the vandalism off as summer boredom.
"That's if you have nothing else to do, or if they have a lack of girls," Wells said.
"Years ago, people were smashing mailboxes," Ponce remembered.
Beck refused to accept summer boredom as an excuse. She thinks that it might be revenge for not allowing teens to cut through her yard in the past.
"This is more than just bored boys during the summer," she said.
The police did respond to Beck's reporting of the incident, according to Jeff Hairston, Fairfax County Police spokesperson. Officers knocked on doors and asked questions the next day.
"No one saw or heard anything. A canvass was definitely done," he said.