Minneapolis Neighborhood Endures 'Mental Mayhem' From Car Window Smasher
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- More than a dozen people in a south Minneapolis neighborhood woke up Tuesday morning to find their car windows smashed in or cracked.
The police department says it got 13 calls about the damage in the area near East 44th Street and 15th Avenue South in the Northrup neighborhood. One of the victims' doorbell cameras was rolling when her window was broken. It shows a white van driving by, slowing at each car.
Aaron Lueders now has a large hole in his driver-side window.
"A little unnerving to see something like that, and then to see that it's happening to neighbors is never fun," Lueders said.
Ben McCarthy found his and his partner's cars each with a shattered window. He says nothing was stolen. None of the victims WCCO contacted said anything was taken.
"Just ... [causing] mental mayhem I guess," Lueders said.
Midge Jamgochian was fortunate to have her car in the garage, but says she's seen a handful of sprees like this in her years living in the neighborhood.
"It has happened before just like that," Jamgochian said. "People coming through the neighborhood randomly and just taking out a line of cars, smashing windows."
McCarthy has empathy for whoever was in the white van, saying a lot of people are struggling during the pandemic. Lueders says turning off notifications from his Ring doorbell helps him and his wife cope.
"I didn't want to see everything that was going on because it's been kind of unfortunately a bit of a hotbed in this area this year," he said.
Data on property damage crimes wasn't immediately available. The neighborhood has also experienced eight carjackings in the last two weeks.
