STEPHEN RICCIO
SHAWVILLE Jan. 12, 2021
The Municipality of Shawville is offering a $100 reward to help identify a vandal who made their way around Shawville in the early hours on Jan. 12 and spray-painted COVID-related messages on several different surfaces, including Pontiac High School (PHS) and the Shawville business directory sign.
The messages alternated between “COVID-19 is a lie” and “COVID most fraudulent crime” and was also scrawled on the sign at . . .
Mill Dam Park and behind the Home Hardware lumber yard.
Camera footage from next-door pharmacy Familiprix that has been viewed by The Equity showed the man vandalizing the business directory sign on Hwy. 148 at 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning. The footage is brief, but showed a male wearing dark clothing.
It is presumed that the remainder of the vandalism also occurred around that time, as the message on a south-side wall of PHS was discovered on Tuesday morning.
The municipality released a message on its Facebook page on Jan. 13 asking residents with any information related to the early morning vandalism to contact the police at 819-648-2141, with the $100 reward being tied to it should the information lead to the vandal’s arrest.
Mayor Sandra Murray said that police were contacted right away upon the discovery of the vandalism.
“I’d like to catch the B-A-S-T-A-R-D,” she said.
She added that the municipality took all of the vandalized signs down so that they can remove the writing.
While PHS does not have any video cameras around its facility, Western Quebec School Board Director General Mike Dubeau said that the school and the board would be investigating the act.
“It’s disappointing that there is graffiti anywhere on any building so from a vandalism/graffiti point of view, I’m concerned that this would be on any of our buildings so we’ll take the necessary measures to remove it,” Dubeau said shortly after hearing about the vandalism on Jan. 12.
“As far as the message is concerned … we do our best as an educational institution to provide the facts to our students and families,” he continued. “We get our facts from public health and through the Ministry of Education. So I’m disappointed that would be on one of our buildings.”
Dubeau added that while part of the investigation would be taking further steps to educate students and families of PHS, the culprit could very well be someone who is not part of the school community.
Graffiti was left on the PPJ in July and it had similar paint and message, although it is unclear if it was the same vandal.
