Around 2:30 sunday morning, Quinte West OPP was alerted to a fire in the cemetery at St Francis Assisi church on Riverside Parkway in Frankford, north of Trenton. Someone had placed a plastic container of gasoline at the base of a 12-foot precast concrete cross and set fire to it.
The fire was quickly extinguished the the cross only suffered smoke damage.
The search for the perpetrators began immediately with the help of the public.
“In the course of the investigation information was received on the party or the parties that were involved, may have been, with a description and a short time later we were able to locate one person” reports OPP Constable David Ludington
A 17-year old male was arrested and charged wit mischief and will appear in court in May. This was not the first time the cross had been targeted by arsonists.
“Over approximately the last year we were to the church for a couple of other fires, one in relation to teh cross out front, again as well as one to shrubs or bushes around the area of the cross” says Cst. Lundington
No arrests have been made in relation to the earlier incidents.