Wells City Hall ransacked over weekend - KTRE.com | Lufkin and Nacogdoches, Texas

Wells City Hall ransacked over weekend

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WELLS, TX (KTRE) -

Several city officials in Wells came to work this morning to quite a mess after someone broke into city hall overnight.

East Texas News went to Wells to find out exactly what happened. Broken glass, ransacked files, and office supplies were scattered around the City Hall building in Wells Monday morning.

Mayor C.W. Williams says he got a call early Monday that the door to city hall had been smashed open.

"City Hall was pretty well ransacked, and we don't know," Williams said. "We're still inventorying to see what's there and what's not."

Williams says it looks like the people responsible for the break-in were searching for something, but he's not sure what it was.

"We haven't missed anything real large yet," Williams said. "We think it's probably a lot more vandalism than anything else."

Both the mayor and chief of the volunteer fire department were working to clean-up the glass.

"It looks like they might have stuck the stick in the drop box and broke the glass out from what we can gather," Williams said.

Despite the recent break in, Williams doesn't think it has anything to do with the lack of a local police department.

"Because it was bad before, but it's still the same way now, and like I say it'll come in lulls," Williams said. "Lately it's been rather quiet but it can pick up at any times."

Since 2010, the Wells Police force has slowly dwindled, and in 2011, the police chief was fired, leaving only the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office to police the Wells area.

The Cherokee County Sheriff's Office is investigating the break in.
Captain John Raffield says there was an unknown amount of cash stolen from City Hall.
Raffield says investigators do have some information about possible suspects.

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