A vandal threw a rock at a Merritt Library window Thursday, in an attempt to break in just after midnight.
The vandal was cut, leaving blood on the broken glass still lodged in the lining.
“If they wanted a book, they could have come in the day and we’d give them a book,” said Deborha Merrick, branch manager. “There’s no money in libraries. We may get $1.50 in fines per day.”
The rock hit the front desk that was about 25 feet away from the window. It then rolled a further 30 feet before coming to a stop.
Merritt RCMP Const. Tracy Dunsmore said police are waiting for the results of a blood report that was sent to Vancouver.
“The DNA database isn’t that big,” she said, noting only samples from convicts of serious crimes are available. “It will probably be a while before we get the results back.”
She said Purity Feeds on Voght Street was smashed on March 15. A person entered the premises but didn’t take anything.
A window at Davis Leather was smashed on March 12.
“We don’t usually get a lot of this kind of activity,” Dunsmore said. “You get the odd one like that when people get kicked out of a bar and get [mad] and break a window with a fist.”
Library staff spent the day cleaning glass from books and furniture. Steam cleaners were also called in.
“We had to make sure we closed our doors because this happened right in the kids area,” Merrick said. “We had to go through each book and flip open the pages to make sure there was no glass.”
Fragments were even found lodged in the ground approximately 50 feet away.
The library opened the next day.
Another rock was thrown through the library glass at about the same time one year ago.
When the library originally opened, rocks were removed from the area because they were being thrown through windows once every three months, Merrick said.
