[MSN] City offers $5K reward for Dennis

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City offers $5K reward for Dennis
By DANIA AKKAD
Herald Staff Writer

Jeepers: Three days after the mysterious disappearance of Dennis the Menace, the hunt continues today on the bottom of a lake.

At least one volunteer diver will scavenge El Estero this morning for the $30,000 bronze sculpture of the famous cartoon character, Monterey Harbormaster Stephen Scheiblauer said Friday.

Without a trace of fingerprints, drag marks or even a sign of Mr. Wilson, a thief -- or thieves -- stole the statue late Wednesday from the children's playground where he has clutched a teddy bear for nearly 20 years.

City officials said the divers will check the lake on the chance that the vandals may have tossed the 3-foot-tall, 125-pound sculpture into the water -- with a big splash, no doubt.

"It's kind of a long shot because the visibility in that lake is so bad," Scheiblauer said. "We hope to find Dennis. He is much loved."

Also Friday, Mayor Dan Albert announced that the city is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the return of the character created by Carmel artist Hank Ketcham, who died in 2001.

Wah Ming Chang, an Academy Award-winning animator who lived in the Carmel area until his death in 2003, was commissioned to create the statue of the character, inspired by Ketcham's oldest son, Dennis, and made only three other copies.

"That statue is really a symbol of all the goodness and happiness this park has created for people," Albert said at a news conference Friday near the cement slab where Dennis stood days before. "We are truly disappointed."

If someone took the statue as a prank, Albert said, it's not a prank anymore. It's a felony.

"It's a very serious thing. We plead with the person or persons that have taken this away from kids -- bring it back," he said.

Nov. 17 will be the 50th anniversary of Dennis The Menace Playground, which Ketcham inspired and helped build. The playground opened in 1956 with a parade from downtown to the park's gates, where a crowd of about 1,000 people waited to enter.

Kay Russo, the city's recreation and community services director, remembers attending the opening. Children were dressed like pilgrims and Indians in celebration of Thanksgiving, she said.

"When I worked here as a (recreation) leader," Russo said, "people used to come here on their way to Disneyland."

In 1988, the statue joined a mix of fanciful play structures, a Southern Pacific Railroad train engine, and even a moon bridge from Ketcham's Carmel Valley home.

Next to the giant lion fountain that spouts water into the mouths of thirsty children, a frozen Dennis looked for 18 years like he was about to leap -- until Wednesday night.

Sometime during the night, police said, someone apparently unbolted the statue -- it wasn't welded in place -- removed it and, perhaps surprisingly, screwed the nuts back in place.

"When we get the art piece back," Albert said, "I can assure you, it will be welded down."

Monterey police Lt. Phil Penko said without any clues left at the playground, his strategy is to "put the pressure on."

"It's not something you can hide in your back pocket," he said.

Penko said his department was contacting local metal foundries and recyclers Friday and scanning Web sites such as eBay in case a thief tries to sell the statue as a whole or in pieces.

A pound of brass, a derivative of bronze, is worth between $1 and $1.50, much more than it has been worth in the past two years, said Mike Jennings, operations manager at A&S Metal in Castroville.

That might not seem like a lot of money for the effort it takes to steal a 125-pound statue from a public place, but Jennings said that often doesn't matter for people who are hocking sprinkler pipe used in farm fields, copper wire from construction sites and even grave markers.

"Especially the meth people, because they are thinking they'll take whatever they can get," he said.

Last year, Jennings said, his company helped put 27 people in jail who sold stolen objects. He never had someone try to sell a stolen statue, and can't imagine how anyone could get away with selling the statue of Dennis locally. It's too famous.

Someone took the piece for scrap metal, Jennings said, or took it because they want the statue.

"I'll make it my mission to find it," he said.

So will one little boy, about the age of the fictional Dennis the Menace, who stared longingly at the empty cement block in the playground when he arrived early Friday.

"This is where the Dennis The Menace statue was," the boy said to his father.

He paused, trying to grip a melting snow cone.

"If someone tries to take it again, I'll just kick their butt," he said.

Dennis the Menace couldn't have said it better.

montereyherald.com.

Tipline • The city of Monterey is offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to the return of the Dennis the Menace statue. If you have any information to help, call the Monterey Police Department anonymous tipline at 646-3840.

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