Police Reports: Rash of Tire Slashings Hits State Street Area

When a resident of the 1400 block of Martha Washington Drive reported early Tuesday morning that someone had slashed a tire on her car overnight, she worried that it might have been some form of misplaced retribution.

Apparently not. Later Tuesday, more reports came in from the length of the West State Street corridor in Wauwatosa, convincing police that no one was being targeted individually but rather that someone was engaged in random vandalism.

The first complaint, reported earlier in Wauwatosa Patch, came from a woman whose tire went flat as she was taking her kids to school. She had long been parking with permission at a nearby day care center, and her husband had just resigned from his job, and she wondered whether for one reason or another her car or family was singled out.

She can probably rest easy on that account, because later Tuesday, a resident of the 1400 block of St. Charles Street reported that someone had slashed a tire on his car while it was parked in his driveway, and another two blocks away in the 7300 block of St. James Street reported the same damage.

Then police heard that tires were slashed on two more cars parked that night at George Webb’s, 7410 W. State St. – one tire on a car belonging to a West Allis woman and two tires on a car belonging to a Milwaukee woman.

None of those four victims could account for any reason they would have been targeted, and police now regard all the slashing incidents as related but random.

In other recent incidents:

Thursday

A resident of the 1900 block of North 70th Street reported that overnight someone entered his unlocked car in his driveway and rifled it, but he had left nothing of value in it and nothing was taken.

Wednesday

A resident of an apartment building in the 9600 block of West Hampton Avenue reported that overnight someone had broken into her car in the underground garage, rifled it and stole her stereo. She also noted that her car’s ignition was damaged, and police determined that the thief had attempted to hotwire and steal the car as well. Another resident of the building reported that his car had been damaged overnight as well in an apparent attempt to break into it. There were two holes punched through the door panel near the lock, and the lock itself was bent and crooked.

The manager of Baskin Robbins, 1417 Wauwatosa Ave., reported that some time Tuesday evening someone had passed two counterfeit $20 bills.

Monday

At 5:55 p.m., a 19-year-old Milwaukee woman was arrested for theft after she was seen stealing a license plate off a car parked in the 2300 block of North 69th Street. A caller told police she had been out on her front porch when a car drove past, then turned around and came back and stopped in front of a neighbor’s car. She said a young woman got out, wrenched the license plate off, got back in her car and drove off. The caller said the suspect‘s car then crossed West North Avenue and stopped, still in full view. Police quickly found the car still there and arrested the woman, who admitted the theft.