Human Feces Found on Park Benches

The unsavory story begins like this in the latest Police blotters:

On Nov. 2 at 9:33 a.m., Joe Arduino of the Recreation Department reported to Tarrytown police that an unknown person had been defecating in Pierson Park on several occasions. The latest incident was reported to him on that day where it appeared as though someone defecated on the soda machine and several park benches.

The officer reported that the incident had been happening since about Nov. 20 and confirmed that feces had been found on about seven RiverWalk benches and both soda machines in Pierson Park in the vicinity of the Recreation Department and Senior Center. A case for criminal mischief was filed.

Lieutenant William Herguth said there used to be portable toilets in the area that had been removed for the winter. “This has happened since then,” he said, though he said it looks like the problem has now stopped.

Herguth said police do not know who the culprit is and can’t speculate if it’s a homeless person. These incidents did not appear, he said, to be acts of malicious vandalism but rather “we are lead to believe it’s just someone using these places as a toilet,” Herguth said.

He said the Parks Department had the areas power washed.