Photo: Getty Images
A statue of baseball icon Jackie Robinson that was cut off at the ankles and stolen from a Kansas park has been found burned and unsalvageable, per KAKE News.
On Tuesday (January 30), Wichita officials said the fire department responded to a report of a trash fire at Garvey Park at around 8:30 a.m.
After extinguishing the flames, firefighters found bronze pieces from the statue in the rubble. Officials said the statue of Robinson, the first player to break Major League Baseball’s color barrier, wasn't salvageable.
The discovery came after Wichita officials said last week that Robinson's statue went missing in McAdams Park. The statue was cut off at the ankles, and all that remained were Robinson's feet.
Surveillance video showed two people carrying the statue in the dark.
“I’m frustrated by the actions of those individuals who had the audacity to take the statue of Jackie Robinson from a park where kids and families in our community gather to learn the history of Jackie Robinson, an American icon, and play the game of baseball,” Wichita police Chief Joe Sullivan previously said in a statement. “This should upset all of us.”
Sullivan noted that the statue was stolen just before Black History Month. Before joining the Brooklyn Dodgers and breaking the color barrier in 1947, Robinson played for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues.
Council member Brandon Johnson pledged to replace the Robinson statue.
"We will continue to invest in this community, and this tragic incident will not remove that hope that we all have for the area," Johnson said in a statement.
No arrests have been made in connection to the incident. A fundraiser has been started for a replacement statue.
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