UPDATE, PICTURES: University Place Police Arrest Man For Allegedly Damaging Cirque Park Playfields

UPDATE: 12:45 p.m., 4/4/12

I just got this update from University Place Parks and Public Works Director Gary Cooper regarding how much damage Sunday's driver allegedly caused:

It looks like none of the irrigation was broken; the damage is just turf. I estimate the repairs will cost $500 and a couple of months for the grass to come back so you can’t see the scars.

Thanks, Gary.

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University Place Police arrested a Tacoma man who allegedly used his vehicle to damage the playfields at over the weekend.

According to Interim Chief Mike Blair, a witness called 911 around 2:30 p.m., Sunday to report a vehicle doing "doughnuts" in the grass playfield of the park. Deputies arrived but were unable to find the suspect vehicle, although they found “extensive damage” to the playfield.

A Tacoma police officer spotted the vehicle at South 19^th West and Mildred, then pulled the car over at 6^th Street and Mildred. The passenger told officers the pair had been four-wheeling earlier, “and the suspect apparently had not had enough,” Blair said.

The passenger told the driver - whom authorities identified as Benjamin Morrison - that it wasn’t a good idea, but the driver insisted, according to police. The passenger, incidentally enough, caught the whole thing on his phone and showed the video to officers.

The driver, who lives in downtown Tacoma, had a suspended driver’s license for a prior DUI and was booked into Pierce County Jail on suspicion of felony vandalism, reckless driving and driving with a suspended driver’s license.

City staff spent Monday repairing the Cirque playfield for the sports season, Blair said.

Today, the damage was visible, as the jumbled circles of tire tracks remained on the field. The driver apparently entered the park driveway and made a sharp right down onto the playfields, where he did donuts and that flung chunks of grass up and onto the nearby parking lot.