Disneyland and Disney World are currently closed to the public for an ongoing extended amount of time. And while most have stayed away from the park during this crisis, one man attempted to break in via Disney’s California Adventure and was arrested near the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. He was later cited with trespassing. He did not steal anything from the park.
Officers were alerted to the break-in around 11 pm Sunday night. It didn’t take them long to locate the man, who was chilling out near a construction side located close to the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. The park has been closed for over a month now due to the ongoing health crisis that has put nearly the entire world on pause.
Police have confirmed that they did arrest the 18-year-old responsible for infiltrating park grounds during this closure. A known transient resident of Anaheim, Jeremiah Smith had been spotted leaping over the locked gate to get into the California Adventures backlot. The police were alerted to his brazen attempt at entering the park during off hours, and it didn’t take them long to locate the young man.
At this time, Jeremiah Smith’s motives are unclear. But the Anaheim police believe he was preparing to steal any number of items or equipment. They believe he was targeting the construction site specifically to make away with any tools he could carry. Smith didn’t have anything on him at the time of the arrest. He was later released with a trespassing citation.
It is unclear when Disneyland and Disney World plan to reopen at this time. Many believed the parks were going to open at the end of March, which was the original plan. But the shuttering has moved into April. And there is no concrete reopen date set just yet. Former Disney CEO Bob Iger, who has been helping out during the ongoing issues facing most businesses at the moment, had this to say about the biggest obstacle standing in the way of the Park reopening.
“Clearly, making people feel safe from getting the virus is the biggest obstacle and it’s clearly complicated. It’s not just about — as far as we know — social distancing. It’s about taking a number of steps, implementing a number of procedures to make sure that people feel safe.”
He went onto say this about letting people back into the park in the coming months.
“It’s likely that we’re going to need some mass testing, at scale, and some form of contact tracing as well so that we can identify people who have been exposed or people who have had the virus and may be of harm to others.”
Disney Parks are going to have to drastically change the way they do things in the near future. For right now, they have to make sure no one jumps the fence and infiltrates the park during the closure, causing any further problems for Disney during this hardship. This news was first reported at ABC7.com.
