Unsavory fertilizer
Can you identify this guy pissing on Deep Ellum's community garden?
The video tells the sordid tale: In the dark of night, at 12:18 in the very early morning hours of March 15, three hooligans creep into a nook behind the storage shed of Deep Ellum Gardens, the neighborhood's plucky, fledgling community garden. One, whom we'll call Mr. Pee, heads to the corner, unzips his pants and urinates.
Finishing his task, he returns to loiter with his friends. As one chugs from a bottle, he spots a camera recording their activities and impulsively flips it off. The other unzips his pants to show off his merchandise. Realizing that their activities have been recorded, Mr. Pee climbs up and bashes the video camera, before the trio runs off.
Deep Ellum Gardens co-founders Paula Ramirez and Kelly Clemons are releasing the video in the hopes that someone can identify the offending trio. Unfortunately this isn't the only incident; the garden has been vandalized three times in the past week.
Realizing that his activities have been recorded, Mr. Pee climbs up and bashes the video camera.
"We had two other incidents in which some plants and equipment were stolen," Ramirez says. "Deep Ellum Gardens is being hit by thieves and vandals."
Following the March 15 pissing incident, thieves stole ornamental flowers (which help attract bees and butterflies to pollinate the plants) and two wheelbarrows on March 18.
"The people who run the nursery are giving these plants to us at a wholesale price, since it's for the garden and they're helping us out," Ramirez says. "So everyone loses here."
Although the stolen plants were carefully stored, she doesn't believe the thefts were an inside job.
"We know there are landscapers who have a list of things they need and hire homeless people who gather them," Ramirez says. "I know that Highland Park gets hit all the time for their vases. Belmont Hotel has had several rashes of thefts."
The cameras did catch a shot of one of the thieves wearing a hat, but did not get a shot of his face. There's already a plan in the works to increase the number of cameras onsite.
"As far as the plants that were missing, we're pretty sure that was professional," she says. "They only stole the ornamental plants, they left some tomato plants, and nothing else was out of place. They knew which were edibles and which weren’t, so they had a list. And it had to be a two-person job."
As for the damage done to their camera, they'd rather not prosecute the three vandals who tried to destroy it, but they're not ruling out that option.
"Are we going to press charges or not? We don't know," she says. "We would like to talk to them and tell them that you can't go around peeing on people's gardens and destroying their cameras."
Meanwhile, if you recognize the little pisser, email kelly@deepellumtexas.com.