Last Friday, Marie Brindle was getting into her car on the seventh floor of Parking Structure 1 to go to work. As she put her car in reverse, she noticed something was off. Her tire was flat. As it turns out, her tire had been slashed, and she reported it to the WKU Police Department.

Brindle said initially she only thought one tire was punctured, but a mechanic confirmed it was two.

“Only one of them was reported because the one on the driver’s side [only looked low] – on the passenger side you could actually see the hole,” Brindle said.

Even though the puncture on the driver’s side was smaller than the two-inch gash on the passenger’s side, Brindle said she had to replace both tires.

“It was about $50 for each tire,” she said.

Brindle’ and four others have had the tires of their cars slashed in the past two weekends, with the first three occurring on Oct. 31. All of the incidents have occurred in Parking Structure 1. The number of tires slashed varies from one tire to all four, for a combined estimated damage value of about $1,000.

Dominic Ossello, WKU Police Department communications officer, said as of right now, the slashing pattern appears random with nothing connecting the victims in any “way, shape or form.”

“It’s small clusters, as in two or three cars were in real close proximity to each other,” he said.

While the majority of the incidents occurred in the span of one night, another incident occurred the following weekend. However, Ossello said the police department has increased vehicle patrol, as well as foot patrol, in the area.

“With tire slashing, the real difficulty is that somebody can walk by and puncture a tire very quickly and not even look that out of place getting in between vehicles,” he said.

With no cameras located within parking structures, no tape can be rewound to show the culprit. Ossello said getting cameras inside parking structures is a cost issue at this point.

“It’s definitely something we need to look into. It’s just a cost issue at this point to get cameras that will view all levels from all direction[s],” he said. “One single camera won’t get you a good view, especially around corners and things like that.”

Ossello said students reporting suspicious activity is important when trying to follow up on leads.

“Tire slashing is an extremely hard thing to pinpoint, but as always, we really need students’ help. If they see something suspicious or someone walking around, don’t hesitate to call us,” he said.