The Wichita (Kansas) Police Department announced Tuesday that an arrest has been made in relation to a Jackie Robinson statue being stolen from a local park. The statue ended up being destroyed and found in pieces days later.
Police arrested Ricky Alderete, 45, and charged him with felony theft (value over $25,000), aggravated criminal damage to property, identity theft and making false information.
The statue was stolen from McAdams Park, which serves as the home of League 42. League 42 is a youth baseball league that serves an estimated 600 children, and the Robinson statue was built in 2021.
"The investigation has not revealed any evidence indicating that this was a hate-motivated crime," Aaron Moses of the Wichita Police Department said. "We believe this theft was motivated by the financial gain of scrapping common metal."
Bob Lutz, who serves as the executive director of the League 42 Foundation, added that "we're feeling good that someone is being held responsible, and I do believe that all individuals involved will be apprehended."
Following the theft, pieces of the statue were found burnt in Garvey Park, according to KAKE.
Shortly after the theft took place, over $145,000 in donations poured in to aid in rebuilding the iconic statue, according to the Associated Press. An online fundraiser was started with a goal $75,000 to help rebuild the statue honoring Robinson, who broke baseball's color barrier in 1947.
Surveillance footage from the initial vandalism showed a brown pickup truck arriving at Jackie Robinson Pavilion outside the League 42 fields while "at least two people" ripped down the statue before driving it away. Authorities had been searching for the statue since it was found missing, and their search ended Tuesday morning.
The Wichita Fire Department received a call about a trash can on fire at Garvey Park at 8:40 a.m., per the KAKE report. After extinguishing the blaze, firefighters discovered pieces of the Robinson statue that had been torched.
In a press conference, Councilman Brandon Johnson vowed to put another statue up in place of the one that was destroyed.
"We will make sure that we find a way to get that statue back," Johnson said. "We will continue to invest in this community, and this tragic incident will not remove that hope that we all have for the area."
On that front, League 42 founder and director Bob Lutz said the mold from the original statue is still intact. The park will now be able to get a replica of the original Robinson statue, which was created by John Parsons.
"Fortunately, the mold from his work is still viable, and the statue that reappears at McAdams Park will be the work of John Parsons," Lutz said, per KAKE.
The Robinson statue, which now consists of just a pair of cleats, stood outside of the League 42 youth baseball fields. Lutz started the program in 2013, renovating McAdams Park in hopes of making baseball more accessible to people from all walks of life. The statue itself was erected in 2021 when the Jackie Robinson Pavilion was constructed.
