Construction Equipment Vandalized

The Cocke County Sheriff’s office is investigating a rather large theft. Venture Contracting Excavating of Parrottsville told the sheriff’s office they were working at the site on Timber Trail in Newport on Wednesday October 30 and left the site that evening. When they returned Thursday morning, they found an attachment for one of their CAT loaders was gone. Jennifer Askew with Venture says the attachment did not have a GPS tracker on it, but the loader it attached to does and the company says the loader was used to load the attachment with by the thief around 10:30pm the night of October 30. The attachment is a HM415c High Flow XHP Hydraulic Mulcher valued at $34,000.

Blaylock Construction also reporting some of their equipment was the target of vandals last week. Blaylock, who is doing the work on the Newport By-Pass says they discovered Friday morning that two dump trucks and a track hoe had been vandalized. A window out of each had been shot out by what appeared to be a BB gun causing over $4,000 in damage. The area where the vandalism occurred was between Woodson Road and Rankin Road.