Mediation vs. prosecution: Did museum make right choice?

Call it "The Land That Time Forgot" syndrome.

The 1975 movie, based on a 1918 Edgar Rice Burroughs (the Tarzan guy) book, puts a group of British sailors on a remote island where dinosaurs still roam. I must have been 14 when I saw it.

So when my friend Liam took me hiking along Ellerbe Creek and we came upon the hulking bontosaurus in the weeds years ago, I couldn’t help but travel a little bit back in time myself.

I think it’s that way with a lot of folks. That’s why so many got so angry at the unnamed vandals who sawed off the dinosaur’s head last month.

And that's why the museum is just as strongly protecting the identities of the kids who did it.

“The Museum has received both strong positive feedback and questions from our community regarding our choice to use mediation rather than pressing charges or litigation,” vice president Julie Ketner Rigby said in a statement.

The museum decision has irked some Durham residents. John Sideris donated money to help repair the statue and added a note criticizing the museum for not being more transparent. That and other comments on the Duke Park listserv made me call Rigby yesterday.

“Not everybody’s happy with the situation,” she conceded.

But the museum --  which started as a children's museum, remember -- is concerned about the safety of the vandals. Some people were so angry they made threats, with at least one person saying somewhere that those responsible should be shot.

“This is not a situation that we’re used to dealing with,” Rigby told me last night. “We’re prepared for a lot of things, but this is not one of them.”

Sideris spoke with Rigby too and said he came away less upset.

“From my perspective the point of consequences is to improve behavior not to mete out vengeance, as much as that might be what we really want.” he wrote. “Jail or criminal charges may not be the best consequence if the desire is to improve behavior.”

Still, the museum receives tax dollars and is asking the public for money to make repairs. Doesn’t it owe the public more details on how those responsible will pay for their “heinous” act, to use the word of neighborhood leader Mike Shiflett?

Rigby said she would talk with the museum President and CEO Barry Van Deman today and get back to us if she can provide any more information.

UPDATE: Rigby called back this afternoon (Wednesday). She said the museum won't say how many kids were involved, how much they paid in restitution or give details of their community service.