By: Jerry Zhang
On Friday, August 2, 2024, Ricky Alderete was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the theft and destruction of a Jackie Robinson statue in January at League 42’s field. This incident adds to Mr. Alderete’s extensive criminal record.
Jackie Robinson was a groundbreaking American baseball player who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. His career spanned from 1947 to 1956, during which he became known for his exceptional talent, winning several awards: Rookie of the Year in 1947, National League Most Valuable Player award in 1949, and was a six-time All-Star. Beyond his on-field achievements, Robinson’s courage and dignity in facing racial prejudice and his role in advancing civil rights made him an enduring symbol of social progress in America.
On the morning of January 25, the day of the crime, surveillance footage captured two individuals dismantling the statue with a concrete saw, leaving only its feet behind. The rest of the statue was placed on a truck bed that was later traced back to Mr. Alderete. A city worker subsequently found the burning remnants of the statue in a trash can, destroyed beyond repair.
Many initially feared that this was a hate crime, but investigators found no evidence to support this theory. “Instead, we believe this theft was motivated by the financial gain of scrapping common metal,” said Lieutenant Aaron Moses of the Wichita Police Department during a news conference. Text messages revealed in the court case later corroborated this, with Mr. Alderete telling a friend, “I am on my way to the scrap yard now so that we can process the scrap and get paid.”
Mr. Alderete has had a long history with the law. Starting in the 1990s, Mr. Alderete has been stuck in a vicious cycle of opiate addiction: sobriety, relapse, and incarceration. These issues intensified in 2020 after he was laid off and unable to find work in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic. As his heroin use escalated, it fractured his relationship with his family, leading him to live in a homeless shelter by 2022. During this period, he began stealing and pawning phones. Following the theft of the Jackie Robinson statue, he was caught breaking into someone else’s home where he admitted to stealing the statue.
In the end, the court sentenced Mr. Alderete to 162 months in prison and ordered him to pay $41,500 to League 42, the nonprofit youth baseball league that had installed the statue outside its field.
This situation highlights the struggles many people face and the desperation that can drive them to criminal actions. However, it shows how people are willing to help such as League 42 themselves, who offered their support to Mr. Alderete’s family despite his actions.