Surveillance cameras in Karaganda captured a man tearing up young trees planted outside a coffee shop. The obn.public Instagram page published video from the scene, the website infohub.kz reports.
"Someone ruthlessly pulled out our little trees at night, our small saplings, the elms we wanted to turn into a hedge. Honestly, words can't describe it. It's just savagery. I used to show them off, remember, proud of how well they had taken root, how well they were growing, that we would soon be trimming them, that there would be a little green fence here. But alas, someone really doesn't want that, someone is dead set against it. Watch the video," the post said.
According to the Karaganda Region Police Department, which spoke to a NUR.KZ correspondent, officers reviewed the surveillance footage after the coffee shop owner filed a complaint and identified the offender.
"He turned out to be a 51-year-old local resident living alone who is registered at a psychoneurological dispensary. The man has been placed in a specialized medical facility," law enforcement said.
A new video was later posted on the page, with a caption saying the man who uprooted the trees had returned and begun threatening a female coffee shop employee. The footage shows him entering the establishment and addressing the worker.
"You'd better move out. Who was it... about that hedge... if you plant it here, where people walk," the man says in the video.
The Karaganda Region Police Department explained that the man had again been placed in a specialized medical facility.