Jackie Robinson statue in Wichita, Kansas, stolen - The Washington Post

A statue of baseball legend Jackie Robinson that stood at a park in Wichita was stolen by robbers Thursday, police and city officials said.

The bronze statue was cut at the ankles and hauled away in a truck, according to the Wichita Police.

The incident has angered the local community. Other than the sheer historical significance of Robinson — the first Black major leaguer who broke the sport’s color barrier — the statue was stolen from McAdams Park, home of League 42, a youth league named after Robinson’s jersey number. The theft also came days before Black History Month, which starts Thursday.

“No matter the motivation of those who were involved, they were not only stealing from the community, they’re also stealing from the legacy of work that has been put in by the members of League 42,” Brandon Johnson, a member of the Wichita city council, told reporters at a news conference Friday. “But more importantly, they’re stealing from the kids.”

“It is incredibly disgusting to me that a person would do something like this,” Johnson added.

Wichita’s McAdams Park is known for recognizing influential African Americans. Other than hosting the Robinson statue, the park is named after Emerson McAdams, a former Black city official. It renamed its community center as the Carl G. Brewer Community Center, after the city’s first elected Black mayor who served from 2007 to 2015.

The Wichita Metro Crime Commission is offering a $2,500 reward for a tip that leads to an arrest, and an additional $5,000 for a tip that leads to the recovery of the statue.

“I’m frustrated by the actions of those individuals who had the audacity to take the statue of Jackie Robinson from a park where kids and families and our community gather to learn the history of Jackie Robinson, an American icon, and play the game of baseball,” Joe Sullivan, the Wichita police chief, said in the same news conference. “This should upset all of us.”

Bringing the robbers to justice will be a priority for the Wichita police, Sullivan said.

Robinson played in the Black league’s Kansas City Monarchs before he debuted in the Majors as a Brooklyn Dodger in 1947. Robinson would continue to serve as a symbol of civil rights after his playing career was over, urging the MLB to hire its first Black manager in 1972, nine days before his death.

The stolen statue’s value is more than $75,000, according to city officials. But the price of the emotional damage that the theft has generated is immeasurable, they said.

“The value is much more than that. It’s Jackie Robinson. And I’ll just leave it at that,” Troy Houtman, the city’s park and recreation director, said at the news conference.

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2024-01-27 11:20:00Z
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