Putting the brakes on tire slashing

By Bennett Gavrish

In the so-called safest city in America, Doug Haslam stepped outside his house on Sept. 13 and realized he would not be driving to work that morning.

Haslam, who lives on Nonantum Place in Newton Center, found that two of his tires had been slashed during the night.

“Later on, I discovered that four or five cars parked on our street had their tires slashed as well,” he said. “It looks like it was some lone vandal thinking he was having a nice joke.”

A series of tire slashings and other acts of vandalism and theft made up almost 70 percent of the crime in Newton last year and have grown from 677 to 829 over the last three years.

The increase in property crime has been taken seriously, because the city has historically been known as one of the safest in the United States.

Newton was named America’s safest city in 2006 by Morgan Quitno Press, but then fell to fourth in the 2007 rankings. The rankings are based on statistics from six crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft.

An unidentified person slashed the tires of 40 cars near Crystal Lake in early July, said Officer David Spirito of the Newton Police Department, kicking off a summer of similar incidents.

Officer Spirito said none of the recent tire slashings are related.

“We don’t think there was a ring involved or anything like that,” he said. “It was probably just kids who were out causing mischief.”

No arrests have been made, but police say groups of younger people are behind the recent rash of tire slashing.

“Different types of vandalism are typical for juvenile behavior,” Officer Spirito said. “We do know that juveniles who cause malicious damage are usually part of a group dynamic.”

Newton residents do not need to worry about tire slashing developing into a major crime problem, Officer Spirito said, but certain kinds of vandalism are inevitable.

“You have to worry about that type of behavior in any community,” he said. “There’s always going to be malicious damage, so I wouldn’t even begin to speculate on if or when the tire slashing is going to happen again.”

Tire slashings are especially irritating for residents, because little can be done to prevent it.

“The only protection from tire slashing is to put your car in a garage, but that is not possible in many cases,” said Jay Moskow, the chairman of the Newton Crime Commission. “It’s just something that is difficult to protect yourself from.”

City officials said they do not expect the spike of tire slashing to last.

“I don’t think it’s something people will need to worry about in the future,” said Steven Aronson, a Crime Commission member, “but it’s probably a good idea to keep a light on over your car at night.”