A statue of baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson stolen last week from a Wichita Kansas park that plays host to a local youth baseball league was found Tuesday, burned in a trash can, according to multiple reports.
The statue, which was erected in 2021, was cut at its ankles and removed from its base before later being dismantled and burned, a report from Major League Baseball said.
Surveillance footage allegedly shows two unknown individuals loading the statue into a silver pickup truck before driving it away, the report said.
On Tuesday, around 8:38 a.m., the Wichita Fire Department responded to a report of a trash can fire at Garvey Park, Wichita police spokesperson Andrew Ford told ABC News. After extinguishing the fire, they found what appeared to be “unsalvagable” pieces of the statue, Ford told reporters during a press briefing Tuesday.
Major League Baseball and the league’s 30 clubs are planning on fronting the bill when it comes to replacing the statue, as well as providing financial support to League 42′s youth programs, the MLB report said.
Named after Robinson’s Dodgers number, League 42 provides educational programs and a baseball league for children five to 14-years-old, the report said.
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