Residents in Albuquerque’s Ventana Ranch near Irving and Unser had their holiday light displays targeted by vandals. Surveillance video camera shows several people running up to homes and smashing decorations on the ground.
“To see all of our hard work get destroyed all in a few minutes was as pretty upsetting for all of us,” Nate Bywater, a Ventana Ranch resident, told KOB.
The surveillance video cameras showed several people running from home to home smashing decorations on the ground. They hit six to seven homes and were in and out of the subdivision in a matter of minutes.
“Mostly inflatables, any kind of trees that were upright were taken, smashed to the ground inflatables were popped, cut, ripped out thrown in the street, any other loose decorations that they could get were all thrown out into the street as well and ran over,” Bywater said.
Bywater’s neighborhood is known for its elaborate light displays. Nearly 80% of the homes do some form of decorating during the holidays – including the beloved “Mr. Christmas”, whose home is covered in an estimated 50,000 lights.
“The smiles that you see on these kids’ faces when they come through and the wows, and the awes, and their jaw hits the floor when they turn the corner,” Bywater said. “That’s what it’s about, that’s the reward,”.
Neighbors spent Saturday morning cleaning up and salvaging damaged decorations. The most costly damage was done to an LED Christmas tree outside a home in the northwest corner of the neighborhood – Bywater estimates it cost nearly $2,000.
Some neighbors were concerned about rebuilding their displays before folks arrived Saturday night. Little did they know a Christmas miracle was heading their way.
“We saw the Facebook post about noon, and we were out of the house and hitting Home Depot before one,” Kehaulani Ayze said.
Ayze and her boyfriend Matthew McKelvey bought all of the store’s leftover decorations to donate to homes attacked.
