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Community members complained of 'bullet holes' in the door and windows at the State Trooper barracks in Riverside.
Riverside neighbors see it as another insult to injury. On Riverleigh Avenue, in an area notorious for criminal activity, the State Trooper barracks appears to have bullet holes in its front door and window.
It wasn’t gunshots that splintered the tempered glass in the door and window, however. According to State Police, one cold night in January, a homeless man who wanted a warm place to stay contrived a way to get arrested and spend the night in a heated jail cell. He took rocks and smashed them against the glass. While he succeeded in damaging the door, the evening didn’t turn out the way he planned. Due to new bail reform measures, he was arraigned and released to appear at a later court date.
When it came to fixing the damage, the pandemic interfered, and the process for replacing the door and window was delayed. While bidding requirements and review are a normal part of an attenuated public process, COVID-19 added additional hurdles of closures to all but essential services, repair persons out sick, and material deliveries postponed, police said.
