car vandalism on Linden Ave.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

As I was walking on Linden this evening, I saw several smashed and damaged rear view mirrors, on both sides of the street, on both sides of the cars. It looks like someone just walked the street randomly with a bat hitting things.

I've called the cops, and I've seen them patrolling twice since I called, but well, lots of the damage was done.

When I could identify a rear view mirror on the street, and it wasn't smashed into hundreds of pieces, I put it on the window of the car it matched, with a note.

If you wake up and you find your car has been damaged this way, you may wish to report it to the police; the officer I spoke with said they had seen at least 30 cars on Linden damaged, but they can't tell; some of them were obviously hit, but no damage was done to them, they were just pushed against the car, some were totally shredded. So he said on the off chance the ass (my desc, but he didn't correct me :-P ) is caught, it would be helpful to be able to bring up multiple incidents.

I don't know if they spread their idea of fun to other streets.

Comments

[jamiesquared.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is horrible!

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you mean when you say a mirror was hit but no damage done? Do you mean the owner of the car may have folded in the mirror so that oncoming cars on the narrow street didn't hit it? I've seen dozens of cars where the drivers folded in their mirrors, but this is just so the mirror doesn't get taken off by someone driving by on the snow-narrowed road.

[cos]

I think she means the mirror was knocked off the car, but still intact.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

one rear view mirror was obviously hit/scratched on the back,and swiveled up to the window, but not removed from the car.

I've seen that, too, but Linden is still wide enough for 2 cars to pass, and it was multiple cars, between cars that *were* damaged. One mirror that was swiveled up against the window was sidewalk side; the street side wasn't. Or course some drivers may have done it themselves, but considering the damage to several other cars on that strip...I don't think they all did it.

It would be nice if they did and I am wrong and the vandalism was less extensive than I thought.

[leko.livejournal.com]

This kind of thing really pisses me off too. Some jackass scraped down the side of my girlfriends car the week before last (the 26th maybe) on wallace street. Took off her mirror and scraped the entire side of the car. No note, of course.

I have no hope that the person that hit her car will be found, but if someone is going around hitting them on purpose (whether in another car, or with bat) there is actually a chance someone will see them and call the police.

[ron_newman]

Somerville Journal picked up on this story but says: "Reports of mass vandalism are overstated, say police."

[thespian.livejournal.com]

well, and I wouldn't have called it 'mass vandalism', either. That implies something to me that would be much more extensive than multiple rear view mirrors getting whomped. :-P

(also had to correct them; it initially said I called 911, but I did not; if anything is less of an emergency than 'an hour or more ago, someone seems to have hit some rear view mirrors', I don't know. :-) )

[ron_newman]

I'd call 30 cars 'mass vandalism' but it sounds like the police are disputing that number.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

could be based on the people who actually bothered to report it today?

Anti-yuppie patrol

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

My bet.

Calling it "mass vandalism"

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Makes it sound rather ominous...

Re: Anti-yuppie patrol

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Or maybe some of the victims parked in spots that had had lawn chairs in them.

[cold-type.livejournal.com]

The Boston Globe picked up the story, too. Sounds like the Somerville police are saying the LiveJournal post is a hoax.

"Despite online buzz, rumors of car vandalism on Feb. 2 turned out to be unfounded, said Somerville Police spokesman Paul Upton....officers saw no evidence of vandalism and no one filed a police report...."

[thespian.livejournal.com]

which, ironically, is why I posted this here to start :-P Most people *don't* report when their rear view mirror gets smunched - it's a minor thing, barely a blip for the insurance company. My initial post was to let anyone that this happened to know that they weren't just a fluke, and possibly they should report it. The cops aren't covering anything up - I was told that since none of the cars were mine, I couldn't file a complaint or anything. If no one bothered to file a report, then as far as the police are concerned, nothing happened.

Which is different from nothing *actually* happening. But I find it interesting that my post, which was essentially a tip that 'if this happened to you, know that it happened to your neighbours too, and consider reporting it to the police' is instead being debunked by the police....because no one did.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I don't know if they spread their idea of fun to other streets.

In fact, they did. Mine got hit on 192 Willow Ave.

I filed a police report but don't really expect anything to happen other than adding to the insurance statistics.