Police investigating ‘shocking’ vandalism spree
AKRON, Ohio (WJW) — For a year-and-a-half, Samantha Simmons’ Rubber City Thrift Store has been the target of thieves and vandals.
While she was out of town, someone broke in and stole an estimated $50,000 worth of merchandise. That person was identified by police, but that was not the end.
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“A few months ago, they tried to steal all of the copper wire out of the building off from the side. Two weeks ago, some gentleman broke in through the doors there. Didn’t steal anything because we were here within like 5 minutes of my cameras going off,” said Simmons.
Because of the continued thefts and break-ins, she said she no longer feels safe at the store in the North Hill community, which she has closed.
Then, this past weekend, someone smashed a double-paned window on the building with a cinder block, thrown with such force through the window that it crashed into an indoor display cabinet, leaving shards of glass on the inside of the building.
“It’s a commercial building, so the insurance is $1,500 to $2,000 a month. I’m a thrift store, just running it by myself, so I can’t afford that. So every bit of this damage is coming out of my pocket,” said Simmons, who estimated the damage from this past weekend alone at more than $1,000 and the cumulative cost of everything thieves and vandals have done to her business at more than $60,000.
What she later learned is: This past weekend, she was far from alone.
“Akron police, when they came about this, they were the ones who told me there was at least 15 or 20 cars in this general area that had been vandalized — the windshields broken out, and they were extremely upset about it,” said Simmons.
Whoever is responsible appears to have made the North Hill community a playground for their crime spree Friday night into Saturday morning.
Among those whose car windows were smashed was Eileen Potts.
Potts said the neighborhood has been a quiet one, so she and her husband typically leave their vehicles in their driveway.
On Saturday afternoon, however, she found the rear window of her SUV smashed out.
“There was a big rock … that they threw through the window and it was actually still in my car when I came out, about 3 p.m.,” Potts told FOX 8 News.
They called police and that’s when they learned they were among the growing list of targets in the neighborhood.
“Whenever he retrieved the rock out of the car, he had two other rocks already in his vehicle because of all of the other instances,” she said.
“Also, the officer told me about how they had thrown something, ignited into a vehicle as well, so that was extremely shocking,” said Potts.
On Tuesday, the damage was already repaired after the Potts paid a $500 deductible.
“Everything is so expensive and we don’t have $500 to just throw out to fix our car for someone to just throw a rock through it for fun, or whatever they want to do,” she added.
Just a block away, Robert Shipley-Ripley was one of at least two people on the same street to have their tires slashed the same night.
Shipley-Ripley said someone damaged both of his cars while they were parked on the street, but it was the damage to his brand-new tire that was the most frustrating.
Someone appears to have used a knife to puncture the sidewall of a brand-new $200 tire on the front of his car.
“They punctured the sidewall. If it had been in the tire tread, I could have fixed it, but with it being in the sidewall, it’s … and I just got brand-new tires. So, if you look at the tires, they are brand-new — I mean, they have maybe 50 miles on the tires and they are not cheap tires,” he said.
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Shipley-Ripley never filed a police report because, until FOX 8 News told him about the other incidents, he thought his was isolated.
“I had no idea until you came up and said there was other damage. I had no idea. I just figured it was my car, but now it seems like it was all intentional,” said Shipley-Ripley.
FOX 8 News contacted Akron police to see if they could give us a count of the number of incidents from just this past weekend in the North Hill community.
As of late Thursday, they were still working to tally the number of calls.
Residents in the area said officers were looking for any doorbell camera video from overnight Friday into Saturday morning that could help identify a suspect.
There was also no word on whether they were able to obtain any of that video.
“We are praying they find who did this and for the other people in the community that could have this happen to them,” said Potts.
“It’s just shocking, that’s all I can say. It’s just shocking.”
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