Laurel police are investigating complaints from residents that campaign signs of candidates they support for the November city elections are being removed from their yards without their permission.
Most of the reports to police involve yard signs for Mayor Craig Moe, according to police officials. Moe said he's had more signs taken in the past two weeks than in all of his past campaigns.
"My reaction is that I'm disturbed because when people allow me to put the signs in their yards, it becomes their personal property," Moe said Friday. "It's too bad this is happening. I mentioned it in my newsletter because people have asked about getting their signs back, so we'll get signs to them."
Police Department spokesman James Collins said 68 of Moe's campaign yard signs have been taken and 32 signs for City Council candidates Valerie Nicholas, Michael Leszcz and H. Edward Ricks.
Leszcz, who is City Council president, is seeking an eighth term on the council as its at-large member in a two-way race with Laurel Boys and Girls Club director Adrian Rousseau.
Nicholas and Ricks are running unopposed for the two Ward 1 City Council seats. Nicholas was appointed to the Council to fill the seat vacated by Gayle Snyder, who retired this summer, and Ricks served on the Council from 1980 to 1988.
The other candidates in Laurel's Nov. 1 election are Ward 2 Council members Donna Crary and Frederick Smalls, who are running for re-election uncontested.
In past local election, signs have been taken from residents' yards or tampered with, but Collins said not to the extent that's being reported to police this year.
"Always, in all elections, signs get moved but not like this daily occurrence of them being taken at night and during the day," Collins said. "We're seeing candidates put up signs one day and they're gone the next day."
The police do have some leads they are working on, which they received from witnesses who have seen some of the campaign signs being taken down.
"We have one person who said she saw a van with a black female and two children in it taking signs down. We were told the woman would stop her van and have the children jump out and grab signs and pull off," Collins said.
He added, "The police know what's going on, are watching out for this kind of thing and are following up on information they've received."
Former City Council member Michael Sarich, who's running for mayor, said he's had several of his signs taken down, which he said costs between $4 to $8.
"It's not really an issue because this happens during elections, so we compensated for it by buying extra signs," Sarich said.
Valerie Cunningham, a retired criminal justice executive who's also seeking to unseat Moe in November, said she has not had any of her signs taken down.
"That happened when I ran last year for (Prince George's) County Council, but it's not been a problem this year," Cunningham said.
Collins said those caught removing yard signs could be charged with a misdemeanor and face from three to 18 months in jail and fines of up to $1,000. But depending on the number of signs a person is found guilty of removing, the sentence could be much stiffer.
"If the value of the signs a person has taken is greater than $1,000, the person would be charged with a felony and would face a longer jail sentence and fines of up to $25,000. Also, because the signs were taken off of private property, they could be charged with trespassing," Collins said. "We're warning those doing this that the police are watching out for this and not in their regular cars, but unmarked cars. Anyone caught will be prosecuted."