Vandalism

Why is it that destruction of personal property gives people a thrill? Intentionally and willfully destroying something someone has worked hard to achieve is unfair in my opinion. What gives these people the right to take away what others have accomplished? Is it jealousy, thrill, or just some absolute satisfaction (that I may never understand)?

Vandalism in my day consisted of TP wars. Occasionally letting the air out of someone's tires or perhaps leaving an awkward mess to clean up. You'd hear of people blowing up mailboxes and egging houses, but for the most part, you didn't hear that people slit tires or broke windows. If anything they contributed to minor inconveniences that recipients eventually got over. The bad stuff only seemed to happen down the wrong alley in a bad part of town.

My weekend wasn't exactly peachy and it hit hard at 4 am on Sunday morning. My brother had returned home from the bars somewhere around 3 am. I woke when he pulled my door closed on his way to his room. Somewhere around 4 am, I heard a loud crash. At first thought, I wondered what the hell my brother was doing. But then there was another crash, a slightly louder crash and the car alarm outside my window started blaring. I hopped out of bed probably at the same moment my brother did. We both asked if it was the other causing the commotion. Of course not.

I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting, but it was nerve wrecking. I live in what I would deem to be a safe community. I live at home with my parents, my brother and 2 dogs that typically don't let a deer walk by without going crazy. Our property is completely enclosed by a fence with a drive-in gate as well as a walkway gate. Both are protected via keypad code. Basically, I feel secure at home, as most people should. We get action occasionally when people flip their cars coming out of the turn before our house too fast, or decide that egging the house is a good idea. We've even had kids slingshot our front main window during the day, breaking the glass. They were caught though. None of this prepared me for Sunday morning.

My brother and I turned on the hallway light. We immediately noticed the lower bottom pane of our deck door was shattered. Luckily it's double paned and only shattered through one pane. My brother walked onto the balcony and yelled a little, so if anyone was out there, they'd know we were up and around. I went downstairs and outside, not quite sure why now seeing the car alarm had ceased. Sure enough, what I saw scared me, I ran inside the house screaming for my brother to come down.

My grandmother's car had been picked up Saturday afternoon from the dealership. My parents returned from their Florida trip on Sunday night. The car was to be ready so my grandmother could return home. Needless to say, it's not ready anymore. These people took either a baseball bat or a golf club to the front windshield, what looks like twice. They completely destroyed the driver and driver passenger side windows. They slashed all four tires and you could hear the air rapidly draining from one. I had my brother immediately call the police.

The police showed up shortly after we called. We had one officer. We showed him the car and the window, noticed that the window upstairs was actually broken my a D battery. Found another D battery on the front porch as well. Not sure if they missed or if the grates on the window for the front door saved it. The culprits also left the knife they used to slash the tires. The unfortunate thing in all of this is odds are nothing will happen. No one got murdered, no one was assaulted and property damage seems to be on the bottom of the crime list. I will admit we are quite fortunate that no one got hurt, but this incident has instilled a fear in me that wasn't there 2 days ago. I have nightmares about what if and wake in the middle of the night. It seems like it's all a bad dream until you walk outside and see the car shattered in the daylight.