Pieces of Jackie Robinson statue are found burning in Kansas Park

Parts of a life-size bronze statue honoring the legacy of legendary baseball player and civil rights figure Jackie Robinson were found dismantled and burned early Tuesday after it was stolen from a Kansas park last week, authorities said.

Remains of the statue were found after a city worker reported a fire in a trash bin in Wichita's Garvey Park around 8:38 a.m., Andrew Ford, a police spokesman, said in a statement.

The Wichita Fire Department responded and “while assessing the damage, they found pieces of the Jackie Robinson statue that had been stolen.”

The fire department immediately notified police, who collected the pieces from the scene, he said, noting that “unfortunately the statue is beyond repair.”

Police are continuing to investigate, Mr. Ford said, and they have “already interviewed more than 100 people.” The department is also investigating how the statue was dismantled and how the pieces ended up at the site of the fire. Mr. Ford had previously said the motive for the monument's theft was unknown.

In addition, fire department arson investigators are investigating the dumpster fire, he said. In a statement Posted on Facebook, the department said that “additional portions of the statue have not been recovered at this time.”

The statue had an estimated value of $75,000, according to League 42, the Little League nonprofit that had it installed in McAdams Park in April 2021.

The incident has sparked outrage in the community, said Bob Lutz, the executive director of League 42, which is recording it name for the song Robinson wore, said during an interview on Tuesday.

“People want justice to be served,” he said. “No one can understand why this would happen.”

Robinson, the first black player in Major League Baseball, became a symbol of hope for racial equality in the country when he broke baseball's color barrier in 1947. After retiring from baseball, he continued to work on civil rights issues and continued to break barriers in advertising, broadcasting and business.

There are still many questions in the community about who could be behind the statue's destruction. Mr. Lutz said Garvey Park is “on the other side of town,” about a seven mile drive of the park where the statue had stood.

The police had surveillance images of the theft available on Thursday morning. The video shows at least two people cutting down the statue and placing it in the back of a truck that was discreetly parked near the statue, Mr. Ford said. At the time, he declined to specify what tool was used to cut the statue.

The nonprofit can now turn its attention to replacing the statue, Mr. Lutz said, a lengthy process that will take six months. He added that the group's members “look forward to the arrest of the people who did it in the very near future.”

League 42 will be able to replace the statue because “we created the mold” to represent Robinson, Mr. Lutz said, and a GoFundMe account has been set up by the organization to cover the costs of creating a new statue.

Practices for the organization's hundreds of players begin on March 11, and the season officially kicks off on April 15, which happens to be Jackie Robinson Day.

“I'm so excited to get our kids on the baseball field, and that's always the case,” Mr. Lutz said. “We played for seven years without a Jackie statue, but his spirit was always with us, and we may miss the physical presence of that statue, but we will be inspired to know it will be replaced.”

He went on to say that Robinson's message “has never sounded louder or truer.”