Update 11:41 a.m. EDT Sept. 20: Police said they arrested two juveniles Wednesday night responsible for vandalizing the Christmas decorations. The juveniles confessed to several of the incidents and were taken to a juvenile detention center, WCPO reported. Charges have been filed, police told the television station.
Original report: An Ohio community put up Christmas decorations for a 2-year-old boy suffering from inoperable brain cancer because he probably won't live to see the holidays.
But vandals have been slashing some of the decorations, and the residents of Colerain Township are not happy about it, WLWT reported.
"They're gonna brag to the wrong person. Somebody's gonna tell somebody. They'll get caught,” neighbor Perry Mattan told the television station. “Might not be today, might not be tomorrow but, eventually, they're gonna slip up.”
Brody Allen made international headlines when he was diagnosed with embryonal tumors with multilayered rosettes, a brain cancer that is so rare that only 300 other people have been diagnosed with the condition, WCPO reported. Doctors treated the boy's four tumors for 98 days, but then a fifth tumor was detected. They finally told the family in August that they could not do anything more for him, the television station reported.
The Allen family decided to put up Christmas decorations so the boy could celebrate the holiday, and other community members followed suit. Colerain Township, a suburb of Cincinnati, is planning a Christmas parade for Brody on Sept. 23, WCPO reported.
Shayla Edwards, Brody’s 9-year-old next-door neighbor, had inflatable Christmas decorations slashed in her yard twice in the past week.
"It made me scared, but also mad, because they don't know who we're doing it for and, like, they should be ashamed of themself (sic) and they should stop doing it," Shayla told WLWT.
The leg of an inflatable Santa was cut, and an inflatable polar bear was cut under the arm, the television station reported.
Mattan was visiting the Allen family and heard about the vandalism.
"The lady next door said, 'Somebody stabbed my Santa.' So I went over there and said, 'Well, I can fix it,'" Mattan told WLWT.
"We done a real small part, but, to them, it's big because it directly affects Brody, because, when I was first working on it, he was sitting there and said, 'Fix ho ho?' and I said, 'Yeah, I'm going to try,'" Mattan told the television station.
Police in Colerain Township are investigating the incidents, WLWT reported.
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