Investigation continues into baseball bats chained to telephone poles in SF

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- San Francisco police have found more than two-dozen bats chained to street poles across the city. Some of the bats have nails sticking out of them.

Denise Chew stepped out of an optometrist office on Mission Street near Rolph Street where a bat was found chained to a parking meter.



"This is really odd. I'm kind of speechless about it," said Chew. "It's pretty bizarre and it's weird that there's so many all over the city, but at least they're not going around swinging at people."

SFPD say 27 bats have been located, but no reports of injuries. That's 11 more than Thursday, when the story first broke.

ABC7 News viewer Gerrie Burke alerted the station about the bat and snapped the picture.

"There were bolts in this thing. They had drill holes in it. They knew what they were doing. This was not put together in an hour," he said.



Estella Cirilo works in a nearby botanica. Vandals have targeted her business in the past and she fears this is the same thing.

"That's intimidation because when people see something like that, our customers, they don't want to come inside," said Cirilo.

Police thought one of the bats with a square metal plate looked like a pipe bomb. The bomb squad eventual cleared it.

Officers say there is no immediate pattern or reasonable explanation for the bats.

"It's not a really funny joke. It's a big waste of police resources<" said one San Francisco police officer.