‘Really messed up’: Dozens of tires slashed in Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City

Katie DiMarco walked outside of her Waldo area home Monday morning and saw that vandals had once again slashed the tires on her neighbor’s car.

“I walked down to my husband’s car and literally gasped,” said DiMarco, who realized that a tire had been slashed on his car too.

DiMarco, who lives near 82nd and Oak streets, went back inside and woke her husband to let him know of the damage. She ended up driving him to work and they have been carpooling since. They even cleaned out their garage so they could park her car inside.

“At least we can have one car that is safe and not have both cars outside,” DiMarco said.

They are the latest victims of a rash of vandalism that has struck the Waldo area, whose boundaries roughly stretch from Gregory Boulevard in the north to 85th Street in the south and from Holmes Road in the east to State Line Road to the west.

“Our property crimes detectives are very aware of this situation and have been working diligently on it for the last two weeks,” said Officer Alayna Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the Kansas City Police Department. “The detectives have sent out information to patrol officers to be proactive and visible in the area, especially during evening/night hours.”

Detectives have also been working in the neighborhood and speaking with victims, she said. The Metro Patrol Division’s crime analyst has been reaching out on social media platforms, like Ring and Nextdoor, to find any surveillance video that would help develop a person or persons of interest as well as find a possible pattern.

In the meantime, people who are victimized are urged call the metro property crimes unit if they have any information or questions at 816-413-3406.

So far, police have not been successful in identifying a suspect or suspects, Gonzalez said.

The area most commonly targeted has been between 79th and 83rd streets between Main and Locust streets, she said. To determine the number of reports in the area, Gonzalez said to reference CityProtect, a crime mapping tool.

The map shows that since Oct. 1, there have been 17 reports of property damage, some of which were at the same location multiple times.

That was case of DiMarco’s neighbor, who had two tires slashed over the weekend as well as one slashed around Halloween. Another neighbor had their tire slashed on Halloween too.

DiMarco said they haven’t reached their mechanic yet to see if the tire on her husband’s car can be repaired. If they have to replace it, it will be costly because they will likely need to replace the tires in pairs, she said.

All-wheel drive cars have specific tolerances for how much tires can differ in tread depth, according to Consumer Reports. To avoid damage to the drivetrain, people should consult their owner’s manual.

For two-wheel drive vehicles, the amount of wear on the other tires will determine whether one, two or all four tires need to be replaced.

To see if others in the area knew what was going on, DiMarco turned to the private Waldo Neighborhood in Kansas City Facebook page. There, she found out that someone has been going through the neighborhood and slashing tires for at least a month.

She also found a post by Clara Vaughn, who vandals had targeted twice in five days, slashing 10 tires on three vehicles. An 11th tire has gone flat and might have been slashed too, but had gone unnoticed at the time.

The first time she was victimized was on Nov 10. Vandals slashed two tires on each of the three vehicles outside her home.

“We were kind of floored,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “We looked around the neighborhood and saw that a ton of other tires were flat that morning.”

They replaced the tires on two of the vehicles. Then on Nov. 14, vandals struck again. That time, they slashed four tires on just one vehicle.

“It was at that point that I was really like, ‘OK, this is really messed up,’” she said.

She decided to start collecting data from her neighbors to see how widespread the problem is. What she’s learned is that cars started to be vandalized as early as July.

Neighbors reported someone had keyed vehicles, thrown rocks at vehicles, smashed windows and broken into cars. Then around Oct. 21, tires started to be slashed. The tire slashing ramped up from there, she said.

Vaughn said she has yet to replace the tires after the most recent attack, so she hasn’t been able to use her car in the last week. Her partner’s vehicle was not damaged, so he’s been her transportation.

As for the police response, Vaughn’s opinion is that they haven’t really done much. She said she requested extra night patrols, which they said they would do when available until Dec. 5.

“I don’t have too high of hopes for that, but hopefully they surprise me,” she said.

She said she hasn’t seen an increase in patrols, but she also hasn’t been outside watching for them. The extra patrols, she said, would be a “really good start.” And obviously, she would like police to catch the person or persons doing the vandalism.

She estimated that they will spend about $2,100 replacing the tires that were damaged. They have already spent $500 on a wired security camera system.

“Hopefully, if they come back, we can actually catch them on it because they’re really good at staying out of the doorbell cameras’ views,” Vaughn said.