Over the weekend, vandals smashed bricks and cinder blocks into several cars in the Strawberry Hill neighborhood.
Charles Alexander faces a hefty bill to replace the windshield shattered early Sunday morning.
“It’s just a little bit of an inconvenience,” Alexander said.
The 69-year-old was up watching the Olympics when the vandals struck.
“I heard a loud noise and I actually got up and looked out and looked around and didn’t see anything —I couldn’t see my car from my door,” Alexander said.
Besides hitting Alexander’s car, the suspects targeted the pickup parked behind but weren’t successful. But around the corner was a different story.
They missed Sherry Jolliff’s window but dented the side of her 1980 Toyota Celica.
“Most people would just junk it, but it’s a classic car,” Joliff said.
Jolliff and her neighbors are fed up with the group running rampant in this historic neighborhood.
“It’s still not ok so many elderly people in this neighborhood who are on fixed income, especially some who have lived here for decades, their cars are getting vandalized. It’s not right,” Brittney Schmidt, a neighbor, said.
Schmidt is worried these property crimes may turn violent.
“They could start attacking us if we catch them doing that; but I mean it could easily turn into something else,” Schmidt said.
She wants police to increase patrols in the area and step up crime deterrents.
“This one street light doesn’t light up the whole alleyway that’s a problem too. Light deters crime and there aren’t very many lights back here to stop—scare anyone from coming back here,” Schmidt said.
Alexander is skeptical about that.
“It’s just going to happen as long as there are kids out with nothing else to do,” he said.
Alexander does want people who live in the Strawberry Hill neighborhood to be on alert.
Schmidt has set up a GoFundMe page to help her neighbors with the cost of the damage.
If you know anything about this call police or the Crime Stoppers Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).
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Andres Gutierrez can be reached at andres.gutierrez@kshb.com
