Rabbitman’s footwear vandalized over three nights

ALBANY — A local shoe repair business was vandalized over a period of three nights this week by someone using a BB gun.

Rabbitman’s Footwear, located on the corner of East Oglethorpe Boulevard and College Drive, had eight windows and a glass door on the back side of the building near the city-owned skate park shot out by an unknown vandal or vandals beginning last Friday night.

“They shot out the door Friday night,” said Rabbitman’s co-owner Elijah Williams. “Saturday night, they shot out a window, and then last night they came back and shot out the rest of these windows. It was a BB gun. We found BBs all over the place. It don’t make sense. When they got inside, all they took was some sodas.”

BBs could still be seen littering the ground and in the cracks of the concrete among the shattered pieces of glass.

Owners of the business are both angry and dismayed by the seemingly senseless and expensive damage to their business.

“We just don’t understand,” said Williams. “It’s going to cost us a couple thousand dollars to fix.”

According to the owners, the Albany Police Department was notified, and investigators processed the scene for evidence.

“Saturday night, when they came through, they cut theirself,” said Williams. “They left some blood over here.”

One of the building’s windows was shattered completely, with room enough for a person to gain entry to the building, and several blood stains were visible on the ground underneath.

Owners said they were also hopeful that the community would help, at least by possibly identifying the responsible party or by simply watching out for the business.

“We want to plead to the community to be looking out for this park,” said co-owner Johnny Williams, Elijah Williams’ brother. “It is sad. Rabbitman’s has been around for fifty years. We have just got to get better, and we hope the community will help us. We want to keep the (skate) park open and be a part of downtown Albany. I am thinking about fencing it in with a gate. We clean up when the park closes at night, and in the morning there is trash everywhere.”

According to Latoya Cutts, Albany’s downtown city manager and CEO of the Albany-Dougherty Inner City Authority, which is listed as owner of the skate park and Rabbitman’s property, Williams does not have the authority to fence in the property.

“ADICA owns the building,” said Cutts. “Mr. Williams asked about closing in the fence, the fence that gives public access to the park area. He said that they were going to fence that part of it, and I told him that he didn’t have the authority to close in the fence to the public park. Basically, we needed to talk about how that needed to be handled, but that he didn’t have the authority to close in the fence itself, because the public has to maintain access to the park.

“I told him that we needed to look at options such as bars on the windows as a potential option.”

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the Albany Police Department at (229) 431-2100 or Crime Stoppers at (229) 436-TIPS (8477).