A 45-year-old man has been charged in the theft of a life-size bronze statue of Jackie Robinson from a park in Wichita, Kansas last month, authorities announced Tuesday. Police are seeking several more suspects in the crime, which investigators do not believe to have been motivated by hatred.
“Instead, we believe this theft was motivated by the financial gain of scrapping common metal,” Lt. Aaron Moses of the Wichita Police Department said at a news conference.
The arrested suspect, Ricky Alderete, was charged on Monday with felony theft, aggravated criminal damage to property, and making false information, according to Moses. He was already in police custody when he was arrested in the Jackie Robinson case, authorities said, held on what online court records reflect were charges of kidnapping and aggravated burglary in connection to a Feb. 1 incident.
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Alderete has a prior criminal record, and was also charged on Monday with identity theft and making false information in an Oct. 2022 incident, police said. He was jailed on $150,000 bond.
Police Chief Joe Sullivan did not say how investigators had connected Alderete to the crime, but promised on Monday that his was “only the first arrest.”
“When you try to take something from this community, it won’t tolerate it,” he added.
After the nearly 300-pound Jackie Robinson statue disappeared on Jan. 25, with the thieves leaving only his bronze shoes behind on the pedestal, police obtained surveillance video showing at least three people present during the theft.
The statue was found mangled and burned in another Wichita park five days later. It was beyond repair, the Wichita police said at the time. Its value was estimated at $75,000, according to League 42, a non-profit sports organization for children that takes its name from the number that Robinson wore. A GoFundMe launched by the foundation to raise funds for a replacement has since reached nearly $200,000.
“We’re feeling good that someone is being held responsible, and I do believe that all individuals involved will be apprehended,” Bob Lutz, the group’s executive director, said in a statement to ESPN.
Robinson was a pioneering baseball player, breaking the color line in 1947 when he was signed to play first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. The statue in Wichita’s McAdams Park was installed in April 2021, according to League 42.
