An Illinois teen was ordered to perform community service after a security camera caught him scrawling graffiti on a memorial to Sept. 11, 2001, victims.
Village officials in Naperville, a Chicago suburb, spent $12,000 on a video surveillance system last year after the 11-foot-tall monument was vandalized twice.
The cameras recorded a 16-year-old tagging the memorial with a marking pen last month and police found him with help from local school officials, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
The teen was charged with criminal defacement of state-supported property, paid $354 restitution and ordered to perform community service.
"That's the reason we put security cameras in. I hope it teaches him a lesson," Charles Johanns, chairman of the commission that chose the monument's design, told the newspaper.
The Sept. 11 monument on Naperville's Riverwalk includes a piece of girder from New York's World Trade Center, granite chips from the Pentagon, sculpted faces of victims and an eternal flame.
© Copyright 2006 by United Press International
