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SLPS property trashed from Fourth of July celebration

'The way that people treated that property especially with school starting about a month, it was incredibly disrespectful.'

ST. LOUIS — Some people celebrating the 4th of July made a St. Louis School their garbage dump — and left the enormous mess for the community to clean up. 

The fireworks in McKinley Heights kept Meridith McLane up all night. 

"Sounded like a war outside. It was so loud," she said.  

When she woke up this morning, she took several pictures of the debris and trash in the Sigel Elementary parking lot. 

"There were shells, there were casings, there was paper around the outside of the sidewalk in the actual playground and part of the school property," she said.  

She then contacted Five on Your Side. 

"The way that people treated that property, especially with school starting about a month, it was incredibly disrespectful."

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said that because of the high volume of fireworks calls, they didn't get to Sigel Elementary. 

Police responded to 646 calls about fireworks. That's more than 40 percent more than last year. But here's the problem, according to Christopher Sievers:

"There was a police officer parked in the parking lot as well as a fire truck. But they weren't stopping it. They were just here," he said.

Sievers said he saw this all last night. For hours, he said, there were around 100 people in the parking lot setting off fireworks. And nothing happened. 

"We'd never seen this happen to our neighborhood before," he said. 

However, come afternoon, the parking lot looked completely different. That's because Sievers and some of his neighbors took it upon themselves to clean it up. It took them three hours. 

"It wasn't how I wanted to spend my Friday morning," he said. 

Sievers said there's still damage to the sidewalks. He said he just wants everyone, from police to homeowners to visitors, to do their part to take care of McKinley Heights.

St. Louis police have made seven arrests for illegal use of fireworks. Police said more could be on the way and an updated figure would be available next week.    

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