The bat of the Ken Griffey Jr. statue outside Safeco Field was removed by a vandal who found himself in police custody after a businessman chased him down the streets of Seattle.
News of the incident firsts emerged on Wednesday when Seattle police announced they had apprehended a suspect, Skyler Kaizuka, for the vandalism of the bronze statue located outside Safeco Field, The New York Post reported.
According to police reports, Kaizuka managed to break the loose baseball bat from statue before fleeing the scene.
“Officers arrived and located the suspect a short distance away,” Detective Mark Jamieson said in statement.
Kaizuka was taken into custody and, according to USA Today, is being held on $10,000 and facing charges of malicious mischief/theft.
The bat was recovered and returned to Safeco security personnel.
That was according to initial reports.
It has since emerged that a civilian was responsible for apprehending Kaizuka.
KING-TV revealed that Kelsey Klevenberg of Seattle was in a meeting with his boss in a nearby building when he saw Kaizuka steal the bat.
The director of inside sales at Zipwhip jumped into action, dashing out of the building and down the street after the vandal.
“If there’s one thing you don’t do in Seattle, Washington it's mess with the statue of Ken Griffey, Jr., the savior of baseball,” Klevenberg said, per KING-TV.
“I knew that I needed to at least get the guy arrested, and hopefully they can repair the statue and get Ken back where he needs to be at 100 percent.”
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