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Teens Trash Ex-Football Player's Upstate House, So He Posts Their Photos Online
By
Jen Chung
Published Sep 19, 2013
Modified Sep 20, 2013
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By
Jen Chung
Published Sep 19, 2013
Modified Sep 20, 2013
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Former professional football Brian Holloway was at his home in Florida when his son let him know that a large group—like hundreds—of teens were partying in their upstate New York home. And his son knew this because there were tons of photos on social media. Holloway checked Twitter and was in shock, telling the AP, "We were getting eyewitness reports of what was happening while it was happening. We couldn't believe what was going down."
The party at the Stephentown home occurred over Labor Day weekend. The former Patriot and Raider has posted photographs of some of the teens on a site called HelpMeSave300.com; the Facebook "about" page explained, "Last weekend, 300 kids/students broke in and vandalized a residence that has been our home since 1981. They were drinking (underage), doing drugs, selling drugs and destroying property. It looks like there was over $20,000 in damage to the home."
The damages are from when, according to the AP, the kids "broke about 10 windows and glass doors, punched dozens of holes in the walls, dragged kegs of beer across oak floors and left behind an 'enormous amount' of graffiti. His $20,000 damage estimate does not include personal items that were stolen." The intruders also peed on his rugs. Yes, they peed on the dude's rugs.
The website says:
If you would like to come and help out, I'm in need of floor sanders, carpet folks, good painters that can help maybe match some paints. Please bring cleaning supplies and i guess some food. I will have security there, so please see the security folks and register with them. I will be planning some fundraisers and will post that on the website.
I will not be discussing anything accept [sic] getting the house and the grounds cleaned up.
I want to give a personal thank you -- some great folks who stepped up to help out right away. Please go by and thank them. They are good people.
Some teens who weren't at the party helped clean the home; one 16-year-old said to the Times Union, "We just wanted to show him that not all teenagers in the world do these kind of things."
As for his vigilante approach, "It's not hard to identify who they were. We've got 170 tweets. We have 200 to 220 names already confirmed today. I'm going to go online right now — I guarantee I'll have 10 more names of people who are sharing who was there, what they did. And that data is all going to the sheriffs." Holloway wants to help these teens take responsibility for their actions and "send [an] urgent message about the dangers of drinking, drugs, crime and violence."
This weekend, Holloway is planning a picnic and tells those teens who ruined his home, "Please help! Come out and help set up, fix up, bring food, and picnic stuff, so we can honor these real HEROS. I'm here. Come now. Take a stand for your future. This is called redemption."
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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