FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ Three teddy bears. A basketball trophy. Framed poems. American flags.
All were among the tokens of love and mourning at a memorial to the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
And all were stolen Sunday night and stuffed in the back of a Cadillac, authorities say.
A deputy saw Michael Shawn Kennedy, of Hollywood, and Kara M. O'Neil, of Fulton, N.Y., putting a bundle of pinwheel lawn ornaments from the memorial into the Cadillac, which had an expired tag and was parked in front of a No Parking, No Stopping Anytime sign. A half-empty bottle of vodka was in a cooler of ice on the front passenger seat, according to an arrest report.
The couple appeared to be intoxicated, but reports did not describe whether they had been tested for alcohol consumption.
Kennedy told a deputy about the pinwheels, "I was taking them out of the car to make a memorial," a report said.
Witnesses on Sunday night told deputies they also saw Kennedy and O'Neil ripping down posters and pulling items from crosses at the Parkland campus, tributes that arose in the aftermath of gunfire that killed 17 students and staffers and injured 17 others on Feb. 14.
A large white canvas memorial banner was taken from the fence. It read, "Now is not the time," with the word "not" crossed out. An image of a rifle had a red circle and slash mark over it, deputies said.
When Kennedy was being walked to a patrol car, he told another deputy, "I ripped down the anti-gun banner because I am pro-gun," a report said.
The witnesses told investigators they saw O'Neil carrying a teddy bear. O'Neil told a deputy, "Oh, we were going to make a memorial of our own at the high school," the arrest report said.
But deputies didn't believe them and wrote that the items were inscribed and clearly marked and were placed at the site by other people, and not O'Neil or Kennedy.
During a court hearing Monday afternoon, Broward Judge Kim Theresa Mollica ordered a $1,000 bond for Kennedy, who is unemployed. Mollica set the same bond Tuesday for O'Neil, a computer software programmer who works from home and moved to South Florida three months ago, according to court testimony.
The judge also ordered them both to stay away from the school campus.
The couple were arrested Sunday night on suspicion of removing or disfiguring a tomb or a monument, a felony offense.
The items that were allegedly stolen _ including the banner; three bears; a Parkland 2017 basketball trophy for first place; framed poems; pinwheel lawn ornaments; a red stone with the phrase "Never Again" on it; and American flags _ were found in the back seat of the Cadillac, according to their arrest reports and photographs released by the sheriff's office Wednesday.
A shadowbox held a picture of each person who was murdered, an image of an eagle with its head down that represented the school's mascot and a border of tiny silver angels. On the back it's inscribed "Dedicated to MSD, from (Pompano Beach High School) NHS, Dr. Sandy Melillo."
It is unclear what Kennedy and O'Neil may have wanted to do with the items that represent so much to the community that a museum and digital archive may be built.
Those efforts will be to remember the lives lost that tragic day, when a former student brought an AK-15 to school and fired upon students and staffers.
"I'm an attorney and like to wait until I have the evidence before I make any kind of snap judgment, and I reserve my right to wait to judge this," said Parkland Commissioner Ken Cutler. "If their motivation was either an attempt to deface, destroy or demolish these mementos or, even worse in my mind, that they were doing it for commercial gain, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
The alleged vandalism of the memorial to the dead has not spurred a race to collect what remains.
That massive task was already planned for Wednesday and is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. The banners that hang from fences around the campus will remain in place, at the request of the school, Cutler said.
"But anything that can be destroyed by the sun, wind and rain, we want to preserve and protect those items," Cutler said.
Jeff Schwartz, president of the Parkland Historical Society, said between 1,500 and 2,000 tributes that were placed near the Parkland Recreational and Enrichment Center and amphitheater in Pine Trails Park were already collected mid-March.
Those items are boxed and being kept in secure, climate-controlled storage facilities. Though Pam Schwartz _ a curator leading the One Orlando Collection in preserving artifacts from the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub _ has volunteered with the Parkland project, organizers are hoping a local archivist will come forward to help document this grim chapter in the city's history.
Citing Sunday night's alleged vandalism, Cutler declined to say where those facilities are. City administrators are talking with a local university about the possibility of using its conservation storage facility, "but it's not definitive yet," Cutler said.
"The point is to approach this with reverence and to protect and preserve these memories of the victims of this tragic incident," he said.
Cutler said he hopes on Wednesday that about 40 people will help collect all of the tributes that hug the school's campus.
"We're still hearing from people who may volunteer," Cutler said about the ambitious goal of gathering it all up in a single day.
Schwartz, the historian said, there is a sense of urgency because "The stuff is not in good shape, so we're hoping to get it out of there."
He said of the alleged vandalism, "It's overwhelming. For somebody to steal from a memorial for children who were shot, it's just overwhelming."
