SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio police are investigating reports of vandalism involving political campaign signs that had been posted alongside a North Side highway.
They have received at least two reports so far, although the crime targeted multiple candidates running for races in the March primary elections.
As of Friday morning, there were no fewer than eight signs lying on the ground in pieces near the southbound access road of Highway 281 and Encino Rio. On the northbound side, there also were remnants of at least half a dozen signs.
The candidates featured on the signs included both Republicans and Democrats. In one case, signs for candidates facing each other in the same political race were targeted.
“It happens every campaign season, at least two or three candidates get hit pretty hard,” said Joann Baeza.
As owner of Spectrum Works Printing and Signs, she said she has gotten requests for reprints after signs were defaced.
However, when Baeza looked at photos from this most recent incident, she was stunned.
She said she has never seen this amount of damage in one place.
“That’s a lot of ink (wasted),” Baeza said. “They take a lot of time to raise money for that, and that’s people’s donations right there.”
Baeza said large signs, like those vandalized, can cost $30 to $50 each to print and install.
While looking at the photos of the damage, she realized that one of them had been printed in her shop.
It was still attached to the fence but had a huge hole cut out of the middle.
All of the damaged signs appeared to have clean knife cuts, rather than wind or other weather events.
Some of them also had areas, such as candidates’ eyes cut out, indicating that the damage was intentional.
“That’s horrible,” said Baeza.
According to police, this type of vandalism is classified as criminal mischief. It can be either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the dollar value of the damage caused.
Punishments for committing criminal mischief range from fines to jail time.