Orchard Park, N.Y. (WBEN) – The Erie County Sheriff’s Office’s Investigative Services Division is leading a probe into the latest reports of graffiti and vandalism reported at the new Highmark Stadium construction site.<\/p>\n
The investigation, which began Monday at the behest of the Gilbane | Turner construction team, is focusing on a series of what officials are calling “pornographic” graffiti and vandalism reported in various interior portions of the $2.1 billion stadium that is under construction.<\/p>\n
“Everyone is mad,” said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. “This is not a joke. This is not funny.”<\/p>\n
Poloncarz said the stadium has been the victim of recent graffiti and minor vandalism – especially in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
The latest graffiti, discovered Monday morning, prompted Gilbane | Turner to suspend work at the stadium in order for investigators to talk with construction workers to determine who may be responsible for the acts.<\/p>\n
Anyone who is identified will be prosecuted, Poloncarz said.<\/p>\n
Poloncarz called the graffiti pornographic and targeted the LGBTQ community.<\/p>\n
“There is a definite LGBTQ sentiment,” Poloncarz said.<\/p>\n
Construction will remain paused through Wednesday, but Poloncarz is confident the stadium will be completed this summer in time for the new NFL season.<\/p>\n
More than 1,300 construction workers are on site on a seven-day a week, three-shift schedule as crews race to finish the stadium by early July.<\/p>\n
The stadium project is more than 87% complete, but besides this week’s pause, several days saw limited or no construction activity because of the harsh winter weather.<\/p>\n
The pause has triggered an emergency Wednesday morning meeting between key construction industry and union leaders.<\/p>\n
Poloncarz said a reward may be offered to help identify the suspect.<\/p>\n
Many believe the suspect may be someone from the construction industry or unions because where the graffiti and vandalism was located – a fob and swipe card was required as it was in secure part of the stadium.<\/p>\n
Some graffiti was also found in some of the suites.<\/p>\n
Poloncarz said some of the graffiti will be able to be erased but other parts may require rebuilding portions of the stadium’s interior because the damage was too deep.<\/p>\n
“All it is doing is adding an expense to the project,” Poloncarz said. “This all because of some idiot.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orchard Park, N.Y. (WBEN) – The Erie County Sheriff’s Office’s Investigative Services Division is leading a probe into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-474815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}