Vandalism occurred in Oak Grove cemetery this past weekend, Mayor John Quinn said to city police after he noticed damages to gravestones when walking by the cemetery Saturday morning.

At last night’s city council meeting, Public Works Director Brian Craft said he regretted to inform the council and the audience of the damages that occurred to the graves in the cemetery, located in the middle of the University.

“Physical damages occurred to three gravestones, and other signs of damage to flower pots and items around the stones are thought to have occurred sometime between Friday night and Saturday Morning,” Craft said.

Craft handed several photos to the city council members of the damages in 13 separate locations throughout the cemetery.

“Some of the gravestones are knocked over and some of them are broken in other areas into little chips, that sort of thing, but not completely destroyed,” Craft said.

The Public Works Department is in charge of all cemetery care and maintenance, and a monument company will come to the cemetery to fix the head stones that were knocked down, Craft said.

“The city is in the works of hiring a monument company to come down and fix the crumbling grave sites and clean up the debris from the gravestones and flower pots that were smashed,” he said.

Craft said nearly 50 monuments were destroyed in the cemetery several years ago and the people who were responsible for the damages were fined in a large restitution case.

“We only hope that within the next few days the police will be able to hunt down the person or persons who have caused the 13 reported damages,” he said.