Juveniles charged with dousing acid on playground slides that injured 4 children

LONGMEADOW, Mass. — Two juveniles were charged after a number of slides at a Massachusetts park have been doused with acid on this summer time and 4 children have been injured, the Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni stated.

The juveniles, whose identities can’t be launched because of their ages, were charged with 4 counts of attack and battery on a kid with harm and attack and battery with a deadly weapon in addition to vandalism, Gulluni stated. His administrative center didn’t say whether or not the pair were arrested.

“Our collective effort to charge those we believe are responsible should make clear that protecting this community’s children is among our highest priorities,” Gulluni stated in a commentary overdue Thursday. “Whether the threat and harm caused were intended as pranks or malicious acts, it will not be tolerated.”

In June, police and firefighters responded to Bliss Park in Longmeadow for a report of a suspicious substance on the playground equipment. At about the same time, firefighters and emergency medical technicians went to a nearby home for a report of children with burns who had just left the park.

“I let the kids go play. I didn’t notice that there was liquid to collect at the bottom of the slide. I just assumed it was rainwater,” their mother, Ashley Thielen, told Western Mass News in Springfield. “I didn’t really think much of it, and then, my baby, who is 1, just started crying. That was when I knew this liquid that they were around wasn’t water.”

The acid left mostly superficial blisters and swelling on her children’s skin, Thielen said, but it could have been much worse.

“The bottom of the slide, where it was, there was a good amount of it collected there,” she said. “I was surprised he didn’t start splashing in it.”

Authorities decided that somebody broke right into a garage room the place chemical compounds are saved on the park’s swimming pool and stole muriatic acid. The acid, which can be utilized for cleansing or for keeping up a pool’s pH steadiness, was once then poured on 3 slides, government stated.