Four people were arrested Wednesday in connection with vandalism at Thorsby School on Dec. 7.

Thorsby Police Chief Rodney Barnett said parts of the outside of the school and the school’s baseball stadium were covered in spray paint. The perpetrators also tampered with school buses on the property, and air conditioning units outside the lunchroom.

Police reported $4,500 worth of damage.

Barnett said investigators were thrown off at first because some of the vandalism included references to a nearby school considered to be a rival of Thorsby’s athletic squads.

Video surveillance footage eventually led to the arrests of Blake Andrew Edwards, 21, Christopher Neil Finney, 23, Phillip Andrew Hicks, 21, and Jacob Dakotah Mosley, 19.

A 17-year-old juvenile was also implicated and detained Thursday.

Charges of first-degree criminal mischief (a felony) and criminal trespassing are pending against the four adults, Barnett said.

The suspects were all Thorsby residents.

“It’s really embarrassing that they would do something like this to the school they went to,” Barnett said. “I don’t really know what it was for. One of them said they were bored. One of them said it was on their bucket list. One of them said it was peer pressure.”

Barnett commended the officers who worked the case and also thanked other community members who helped, including school employees.

“Several members of the Thorsby Police Department spent a lot of time looking at these videos,” he said. “It was a collective effort.”