Driver doing doughnuts rips up athletic fields in West St. Paul

A motorist who drove onto a West St. Paul athletic field and did doughnuts that dug ruts in the soft ground left behind an unplayable soccer field and about $4,000 in damage.

The vandal also wrecked part of the turf in a low-lying area at the Sports Complex at Oakdale and Wentworth Avenues, said Lt. Brian Sturgeon of the West St. Paul Police Department.

Workers with the city's parks department discovered the damage that occurred between Friday and Monday morning and called police, Sturgeon said.

Police have few leads as to who is responsible, but suspect it may have been somebody who knows the park. The soccer fields are accessible only by pedestrian paths and are hard to get to, he said.

"We believe it was a four-wheel vehicle," Sturgeon said. "A car would have gotten stuck in there."

The vandalism comes about two weeks after a pair of men were charged with damaging soccer fields in Hastings.