Rash of car window breakings plagues Island

by Karen Keefe
Grand Island Dispatch, June 23, 2006

Erie County sheriff’s deputies are checking out leads in a rash of broken car windows that plagued Grand Island last week.

There were more than 30 incidents reported of windows and windshields being shot out by a pellet or BB gun, said Det. Dennis Fitzgibbons. “We haven’t recovered any pellets or BBs,” he said. “But several people reported hearing a ‘pop.’ ” At least one of the reports indicated that a car window was broken by a baseball bat.

There seemed to be a heavy concentration of the BB gun shooting incidents in the southern end of the Island, where more cars are parked on streets, the detective said. But reports also came from all over the town, he noted. Calls started coming in from residents on June 13 and continued through June 16. The complaints came in from such diverse locations as Oakridge, East River, Schwegler, Blackmon, West Park, Stony Point, Whitehaven and Ransom roads; Carter and Riverdale drives; Broadway, Regency Court, Spicer Creek Run and Tracy Lane.

Not Alone

And Grand Island is not alone in having many more of these incidents than usual. “I know that Tonawanda has had in excess of 100 of them in the last two weeks,” Fitzgibbons said. There have been similar incidents recently in Buffalo and Kenmore, he said. Tonawanda police put a $100,000 price tag on the damage from recent car-window shootings there. Fitzgibbons did not have a dollar figure for the Grand Island cases, but said replacing the windows can cost far more than people might imagine.

“We are working with other towns to see if we can come up with a suspect,” he said. ‘Tonawanda has developed information on a possible suspected vehicle, Fitzgibbons said. The description is of a red pickup truck with gray primer paint on a quarter panel.

That description matches a sheriff’s report from this past Monday. The entry indicates that New York State Parks Police received a call that a red pickup with a gray door, matching the description of the vehicle suspected in the window shootings, entered Beaver Island State Park. The time of the call was 5:43 p.m. June 19. The sheriff’s report states that the vehicle was gone upon the patrol’s arrival.