UPDATE:Winston Academy Vandalized

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LOUISVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – The Louisville Police Department and Winston County Sheriff’s Department are investigating one of the biggest cases of vandalism they’ve seen in recent years. So far two arrests have been made and more are on the way.

Police say Winston Academy in Louisville was seriously damaged early Saturday morning.
Police are estimating those damages to be in the tens of thousands of dollars worth.

“I’m totally heart broken and devastated, cannot believe anybody would do such a thing as this to a school,” said concerned parent Paula Dempsey.

There were desks hanging from ceilings, tons of broken glass, and school trophies completely destroyed.
Parents and school faculty were shocked to see the extent of the vandalism that took place early Saturday morning to Winston Academy.

“I’ve been here for a long time and a lot of hard work is going into making this school what it is and I just really hate it,” said Elementary Supervisor Brenda Sinclair.

A number of items reported stolen include cash, several laptops, and cell phones.
Brenda Sinclair, a teacher of 43 years says she’s never seen such destruction and hopes no students were involved in it.

“I would hope we wouldn’t have any student that had that much animosity against us,” added Sinclair.

“As many as 16 rooms that have been damaged, the office area, the gymnasium area, our athletic complex has been completely destroyed, trophies from this year and previous years, just destruction in all of those places,” said Head Master Ferrell Rigby.

Faculty speculate that the damage happened sometime around 2 am. But without an alarm system or surveillance video authorities can’t be too sure. The Louisville Police Department say there’s thousands of dollars worth of damage.

“Right now we really don’t know what happened just a significant amount of damage was done. We really don’t know who’s involved right now. We’ve collected a lot of evidence, getting ready to send that off to the crime lab and we’re going go from there,” said Captain Howard Marshall of the Louisville Police Department.

With so much damage and memories trashed, faculty, parents and students are volunteering to help pick up the pieces to their beloved school.

“My children are going to be safe because the parents and the faculty here are going make sure they’re safe,” added parent Dempsey.

Currently police are working leads in the hopes of making more arrests soon. Police are not releasing the names of the two arrested.

If you have any information you are asked to contact the Golden Triangle Crimestoppers or the Louisville Police Department.
School will be closed on Monday and Winston Academy is asking anyone who would like to help clean up contact the school or just show tomorrow.

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