Thanks to tips received from the public, South Haven authorities have identified the man responsible for considerable vandalism in a public restroom that resulted in the shutdown of the Walmart Store in that community on Friday morning.
The suspect, whose name has not been released by South Haven Police, took it upon himself to destroy water pipes in the men’s room at the popular store on 73rd Street in the city shortly after 10:30am on Friday morning. The resulting deluge of water caused rapid and extensive flooding throughout the store, forcing store officials to shut the store down completely for several hours.
South Haven Police Chief Natalie Thompson released several images from in-store surveillance videos of the man authorities believe was responsible for the extensive damage and flooding and asked the public for help in identifying him. Later in the day that mission was accomplished, however there was no immediate word on if the man had been taken into custody or what type of charges might be levied against him. At the time of the incident they had accused the suspect of malicious destruction of property and/or vandalism.
Store officials rallied clean up crews quickly and said that they were fortunate that it was all clean water that was being discharged, so the clean up was considerably easier than had been feared. The store re-opened for business a couple of hours later.
Happening in the final ten days of the critical Christmas shopping season, the vandalism was especially concerning to store officials and any more intense damage could have proven totally catastrophic for the retailer.
Here’s the photo that was distributed by South Haven Police, but he has now been identified and will be dealt with accordingly:
