A before (left) and after (right) comparison of the damaged tree. (Courtesy of the CU Boulder Police Department)
The University of Colorado Boulder Police Department (CUPD) is looking for information about damage inflicted on a tree planted in memory of Trevor Louis Berry, a student who died in April 2021.
CUPD believes the damage, which occurred between April 18 and 21, is intentional. This took place just two years after Berry’s death.
“It may be difficult to see, but the top of the tree was cut off,” the department wrote in a tweet. A before and after comparison shows the tree is missing a portion of its branches and the upper part of its trunk.
Police are treating the damage as a case of criminal mischief.
The tree is located at the southwest corner of Varsity Pond, just west of Macky Auditorium and the McKenna Languages Building.
In a statement provided to the CU Independent, the police said there are no leads in the case and that the “family and friends of Trevor Berry hope someone will come forward with information as they seek closure and comfort.”
Berry was a freshman studying history at CU Boulder at the time of his death. He graduated from Walt Whitman High School in Maryland in 2020, according to an obituary published in the Longmont Leader.
CUPD asks those with information to contact its non-emergency line at 303-492-6666 and reference case 2023-0765.
Contact CU Independent Editor-in-Chief Henry Larson at henry.larson@colorado.edu.
