Six cars were vandalized while parked near the Student Recreational Sports Dome early Sunday morning.
Someone used rocks, wood timber, feet and knives to slash tires, shatter windows and damage paneling, according to the police report.
Kate MacDonald, 18, was visiting friends at the Northstar at Siebert Field apartment building and parked her Mitsubishi Galant on the 1700 block of Eighth Street Southeast at 11:30 p.m. Saturday.
At 8 a.m. Sunday, MacDonald walked back to her car and found the two driver’s side tires slashed, her back window shattered and the inside of her car rifled through.
She noticed other cars parked nearby had also been vandalized, including her friend Tom Shelander’s Ford Explorer, which was rummaged through and had a slashed tire. A nearby Land Rover looked “completely destroyed,” she said. According to the police report, the vehicle was beaten with a wooden log.
University of Minnesota student Matt Swanson, a sociology, law criminology and deviance major, woke up in his apartment to a phone call from the University police telling him his recently-purchased Ford Ranger had three tires slashed and the side keyed.
Nothing was stolen from any of the vandalized cars except for a box of Trix cereal taken from Shelander’s car.
MacDonald said even though her backpack, left in the back seat, was rifled though, her wallet, which was sitting in a bag in the front seat, wasn’t taken.
“They could’ve stolen stuff if they wanted to because they broke out the windows,” said University junior Kyle O’Shea, who discovered two of his Toyota Camry’s windows shattered and all of its tires slashed.
“It appears to be more of an act of vandalism. Somebody wanted to damage some property for one reason or another,” said University police Deputy Chief Chuck Miner.
Miner said the cars parked on the street were vulnerable because the street, which runs along train tracks on one side and University sports facilities on the other, is relatively secluded.
“It’s sad that you can’t park your car along the street, but obviously you’re on a college campus, so stuff like this happens,” O’Shea said.
Both O’Shea and Swanson live in the Northstar apartments, and both are now considering buying a parking spot in the building’s garage.
University police inventoried some items found near the vandalized cars in the hopes of finding DNA evidence to find possible suspects after finding no footage of the crime on surveillance cameras in the area, Miner said.
