Current mood:

thirsty

Another update on Port Angeles High School Vandalism.


Just a couple days late posting the news, but that's alright.



Port Angeles High School was vandalized twice, court records reveal


By Randy Trick, Peninsula Daily News


"PORT ANGELES - Police say that one man charged in the weekend vandalism spree at Port Angeles High School confessed to them and said that the school was actually vandalized twice that morning, according to court documents.

The Port Angeles Police Department filed a court document Wednesday with details of what they said 18-year old Christopher Brogan, who was charged Tuesday, told them.

The police statements also shed light on how officers came to arrest two others in the vandalism: a 14-year old boy and Nathan Terry, 18, who was formally charged in Clallam County Superior Court on Thursday.

Officers were led to Terry by high school students who heard him and the 14-year old brag about the vandalism, according to the statement.

Terry and Brogan have each been charged with second degree burglary, second degree arson, first and second degree malicious mischief and third degree theft.

Terry had been held since Monday. Charges were filed against him Thursday.

Two rounds of vandalism
The Port Angeles police say that Brogan confessed to the vandalism after he was arrested Monday, but said he did little damage.

Brogan told police the 14-year-old came to his house two blocks from the school at 3 a.m., saying he had broken into and trashed the school, the police statement said.

Brogan, Terry and the juvenile returned to the school, the police statement said.

Most of the damage was done during the second visit, but Brogan said he did little of it, the statement said.

The trio ran home when a car alarm sounded after one of them shattered a car's rear window, the statement said.

The three stole $150 from a cash drawer in the bookkeeper's office and split the money, the police statement said.

Brogan's statement to police matched information from the school's video surveillance in the main 100 Building, the police statement said.

Port Angeles Police Officer Thomas Kuch, who works at the high school, wrote that when school resumed Monday, students told him they heard rumors that Terry was bragging about breaking into the school.

Kuch said one student told him that Terry and the 14-year old had visited her house a few hours after the vandalism and was bragging about the spree.

Terry called the girl's house when Kuch was there and asked if the police were looking for him, Kuch's statement said.



Relatives react
Brogan's confession did not come as a surprise to his mother, living in Montesano, near Aberdeen.

Christine Brogan said her son may have been in trouble a lot, but that he always told the truth up when confronted.

"I know, as his mother, deep down in my heart that there is a good kid there," she said.

"I just wish we could find out why these other things happen for him."

She adopted Brogan when he was 18-months old.

Before he was arrested, he was two weeks away from being admitted for treatment through the Clallam County Drug Court.

Christine Brogan said he has tried to reach her, but she cannot accept collect calls from the Clallam County jail.

She plans to visit him in Port Angeles.

"I've never missed a court date down here in five years," she said of his 13 juvenile arrests in Grays Harbor County.

She said Thursday that she wrote him a letter in the meantime.

She said she wrote that she is worried about him, and that he needs to learn to stay out of trouble.

"I support him and love him, but he needs to get it together," she said she wrote.

Meanwhile, Terry's father, reached by the Peninsula Daily News at his home in Snohomish, said publicity over the vandalism has not been good for his son.

"He will probably not get a fair trial in that county," he said."