AngelBeheadedAtElmwoodCemetery

Angel Beheaded At Elmwood Cemetery

by Brian Gott

May 18, 2006

The historic uptown resting place for some of Charlotte's most famous deceased residents has been anything
but peaceful in recent months.

Not that that's anything new for Elmwood-Pinewood Cemetery near uptown's Fourth Ward. The cemetery has
been in the eye of storms ranging from a fight to fly a Confederate flag to a battle over the alignment of a mass
transit rail line. Most recently, the cemetery was the apparent victim of vandalism, which included the beheading
of a statue of an angel.

The cemetery has also become a gathering place for homeless and has fallen into general disrepair, according
to Mark Palmer of the grassroots group Historic Preservation of Elmwood and Pinewood Cemetery. Palmer said
city officials are largely to blame for the cemetery's dire straights.

"This is appalling," Palmer said of recent allegations of vandalism at the cemetery. "This is a big part of
Charlotte's history and nobody in charge seems to care at all."

City officials say they are taking the complaints seriously. However, they blame Mother Nature for some of the
so-called acts of vandalism.

Reported problems at Elmwood have run the gamut from homeless people sleeping at the cemetery, washing
their clothes with running water from the cemetery and leaving the clothes to air dry on tombstones, to pet
owners not cleaning up after their pets and vandals beheading angelic statues, according to Palmer.

"A lot of us are just getting frustrated," Palmer said. "You hear excuse after excuse after excuse from cemetery
and city officials."

Located on the 700 block of West Sixth Street, the 72-acre city-owned cemetery first opened in 1853 and is
one of the oldest and largest public cemeteries in Charlotte. Some of Charlotte's most important citizens
purchased family plots during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and Elmwood now contains the remains of such
men as developer Edward Dilworth Latta, textile entrepreneur D.A. Tompkins, former Charlotte Mayor S.S.
McNinch, and W.W. Smith, Charlotte's first black architect.

The cemetery complex was the center of a civil rights controversy in the late 1960s, when then-City
Councilmember Fred Alexander spearheaded a successful campaign to bring down the chain link fence that
separated the all-white Elmwood from the all-black Pinewood cemeteries.

Palmer said he and others have repeatedly complained about recurring problems at the cemetery to police,
city officials and even to caretakers of the cemetery. Each time, Palmer said, they were told a different story or
given a different excuse about what might have happened.

The most recent excuse, Palmer said, was almost unimaginable. Cemetery officials contend that some of the
recent vandalism isn't really vandalism, rather damage caused by Hurricane Hugo in the fall of 1989.

"Some of these comments really alarmed me," Palmer said. "There's no way this damage was done by
Hurricane Hugo. We stand by our pictures."

Palmer and his wife, Shanna, often take pictures of the historic cemetery to document efforts to preserve it.
They said their pictures prove the angel statue was in tact well after Hurricane Hugo devastated the Carolinas,
and that the vandalism was recent.

"We were all outraged by how bad the cemetery looked and with the homeless living in various parts of the
cemetery," Palmer said. "We talked to several families that have picked up large amounts of trash in the
cemetery, and off their plots, too. The same families said they had seen homeless at the cemetery and made it
known. We are just sick to our stomach on these matters."

Palmer and others said there should be a greater police presence in the cemetery, both for public safety and
historic preservation reasons, and he said city officials should be held accountable for not providing it.

But according to a memo from Assistant City Manager Julie Burch, police have received few reports of incidents
at Elmwood. A review of records, the memo stated, revealed that police "have only received three calls for
service in Elmwood since January 1, 2006. One was a suitcase left on the grounds that was later determined to
belong to a homeless subject, one was a report of a subject sleeping inside the cemetery (however, it is
unknown if he was homeless), and the last was Mr. Palmer's report."

The memo also states that last December a resident reported the head of the angel statue missing, implying
that it wasn't the result of recent vandalism. The memo stated that cemetery crews empty trash baskets in
Elmwood every Friday and mow the grass every 10 calendar days.

Some residents that have loved ones buried in Elmwood, however, said they found the city's claims hard to
believe. Nancy Pethel has several relatives buried at the cemetery. She said she is disappointed that police
aren't doing a better job of patrolling.

"It's just devastating," Pethel said. "I've been over there and I've seen more homeless people and the police
are supposed to be patrolling that."

She said the vandals need to let the dead rest in peace, but the only way for that to happen is if city officials
take action.

"The only solution I can think of is that the city put more effort into patrolling the Elmwood-Pinewood Cemetery,"
Pethel said.

City officials said they are taking the complaints of vandalism and trespassing seriously, and have alerted
police as to the concerns that homeless people are trespassing at the cemetery; a sign has also been posted
stating that there should be no trespassing from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m.

Still, memos also indicate that city officials may have conducted only a cursory review of Palmer's complaints.

According to one memo, the damage to the beheaded angelic statue "does not look new" and as for other
damage to another monument: "We believe the damage to this monument probably happened during Hugo."

County Commissioner Jim Puckett said he found that hard to believe.

"It is kind of curious," he said, "that the city's response to the vandalism was that it was caused by Hugo."

Even if the damage was caused by Hugo, Palmer said that shows what a poor upkeep job the city is doing for
the cemetery.

"That would mean these things have been in horrible shape for years and nobody's lifted a finger to fix it,"
Palmer said.

County Commissioner Norman Mitchell responded to at least one of Palmer's e-mails and opined that if the city
couldn't take care of the problems, other factors might.

"Someone is going to bust Hell wide open for doing this," Mitchell wrote in response to news that an angel
statue had been beheaded.