KDKA
By Erika Stanish
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FAYETTE COUNTY, Pennsylvania (KDKA) — Those with loved ones at a cemetery in Fayette County are outraged after they said maintenance crews drove heavy machinery right over headstones and graves this week.
At Lafayette Cemetery in Grindstone on Wednesday, KDKA-TV saw several tire tracks in the snow that went right over several headstones, along with damaged American flags and decorations.
“This place, they’ve been out of control. They’re damaging the cemetery like crazy,” said David Bella, who has loved ones buried at the cemetery.
People recount stories of damage at cemetery Bella said this week, maintenance crews were working in the Garden of New Veterans section of the cemetery near the mausoleum where his mother, father and wife are buried. He said crews were digging a new grave in the area where most of the damage is.
“It breaks my heart. I mean, these are veterans. They’re flags. They just plow them over,” Bella said.
He said this is not the first time an incident like this has happened, and he wants to see more respect for those buried at the cemetery and more oversight by management.
“Their equipment’s too heavy. They know it, and they just run over graves,” he said. “They’re breaking headstones. There’s vases that people can’t even get out of their headstones because they’ve smashed them into the headstones. When they buried my wife, they’d run over the vase, and it was smashed into the ground. I literally brought my own tools out, and I managed to fight it, and I got it back up out of there for the people, because they had stuck flowers there. Well, they ran them over with a lawn mower [this summer].”
Another woman said her father’s headstone was cracked two years ago after maintenance crews ran it over with a machine. She said that after repeated phone calls to the office, just last month, the cemetery office called her to let her know crews would repair it.
Bella said he believes there is a protocol that maintenance crews are set to follow when pulling heavy machinery in and out of the gravesites.
“As far as I know, they’re supposed to put plywood down. They carry sheets of plywood, stacks of it. They never use it,” Bella said.
Trying to get answers from management As KDKA-TV was at the cemetery, maintenance crews were seen watching as we filmed before coming over and asking us to move so they could “do their jobs.”
Once KDKA-TV’s team moved out of the way, we saw crews move heavy machinery back into the area that was damaged. Two workers then began pouring what looked like jugs of water on top of some headstones and using a brush to clean them off. One worker also worked to fix a damaged flag.
When KDKA-TV went to speak to management at the office building on the property, workers inside refused to let us in. One worker said she’s “not allowed” and that corporate had to provide a response. When we asked who the corporate office is, she refused to answer.
On a piece of paper posted outside the office door, it states, “Lafayette Memorial Park and its staff are NOT responsible for theft, damage or lost items that have been placed on any grave.”
KDKA-TV reached out to the general manager and was told he was on a leave of absence. Another manager reached for comment hasn’t responded as of Wednesday night.
The vice president of people operations and quality of Everstory Partners, the corporate office, sent this statement:
“Our Park Services teams regularly operate heavy equipment on our grounds, both for interments and for landscaping. While we try to avoid impacts to the grounds, sometimes – particularly during periods of rain and snow – visitors may see tire tracks. We do place seed and straw over any tire tracks as weather permits. And, while our teams attempt to avoid damage from our equipment to any memorials, if we do damage a memorial, we will replace or repair it. Finally, please note that our Cemetery Rules and Regulations prohibit the placement of breakable items on memorials, and we conduct park cleanups twice a year to remove such items. To our knowledge, no memorials have been damaged by park equipment, but if any viewer is aware of a damaged memorial, they should speak to our staff on site.”
KDKA-TV asked Everstory Partners if it was typical that heavy machinery is driven directly on top of headstones and if there was any protocol that maintenance crews follow to prevent damage to headstones. We also asked for an estimated repair timeline if damage was done.
The vice president said, “In this instance, I understand that the heavy equipment had to ‘straddle’ the row of memorials to prevent any damage. Typically, we would use plywood, but here, because of the weather, plywood would have caused slippage, and that is a safety concern. I can’t speak to a repair timeline without having a specific example.”
Pennsylvania Department of State investigations KDKA-TV was informed that several active investigations involving Lafayette Cemetery are underway through the Pennsylvania Department of State. However, a spokesperson for the department said that it cannot confirm or deny whether a complaint has been filed.
“Speaking generally, the Department reviews every potential license violation of which it becomes aware, whether that is through a complaint filed directly to the Department, a notification from local law enforcement, or through media reports,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson went on to say, in part, that anyone who suspects violations of professional standards and governing laws should file a complaint on the department’s website.
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