Vulgar vandals strike Wilmington playground

WILMINGTON, Del. (WTXF) - Graphic graffiti caught families in the Cool Springs Tilton Park neighborhood off guard.

"It's a nice park," said Randy Wright who says his 6-year old son Kaden plays at Tilton Park almost every day. He's in disbelief over what happened. He was in disbelief over what happened. The words and symbols are so vulgar we had to blur them.

"Last couple of weeks they had festivals and everything went smooth. Then this just happened," he said. Vandals hit the park, mostly the playground area, sometime between late Saturday night and early Sunday morning. They also doused swings and sliding boards with paint.

"Disgusted. I was walking my dog and I noticed it on the bench and then some of the other neighbors noticed it on all of the playground equipment," said Nora Durant. Her husband Nate takes their 4-year old son carl to the park often. Nate is also the president of the neighborhood association.

"When we came out here on Sunday and we saw that it's like man we work so hard to keep it clean," he said. Nate says there's almost always something going on there to keep kids busy and neighbors connected.

"We all come out to the park and we put out games. I'm a chess coach so we bring some chess boards out so you have young people, old people, everybody in the neighborhood can converge in one space," said Nate.

The neighborhood immediately came out Sunday to clean up what they could but the job was too big. They called the city and workers came out to pressure wash the playground. Durant says this has happened several times before but never as bad as this.

"People in this neighborhood we work so hard and for something like that to happen it was essentially really just a kick in the gut."