HIALEAH, Fla. – Several people in a Hialeah neighborhood say they’ve seen groups of what appear to be teenagers running around and destroying Christmas decorations, and even posting it online.
A family who was victimized spoke to Local 10 News.
Marta Robaina said her family hadn’t been able to afford holiday decorations in years past, so her two sons were really excited when they were able to put inflatable decorations in their front yard over the weekend.
But, just hours later, surveillance video captured what appeared to be teenagers tackling and breaking the decorations outside the home along Northwest 78th Court near 174th Street.
“When we got home they were all destroyed, they were almost on the street, my son was extremely sad,” Robaina said. “It was very sad, I felt violated.”
The clip looks very similar to videos posted on TikTok, showing young people destroying inflatables for likes.
TikTok says they actively monitor the platform for destructive trends to try and delete them as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, others in Robaina’s community said they’ve had the exact same problem.
“A lot of other neighbors were saying the same thing happened to them, some on the same day, others on a different weekend,” Robaina said. “They were upset too. This is not behavior we should condone for the kids in the neighborhood.”
Robaina said her family will be replacing their decorations on Thursday, and she’s hoping this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.
She’s also hoping some of the teens’ parents see the videos and have a good long talk with their kids.