APD Is Investigating 12 Tire-Slashing Incidents Near a Southeast Austin Park and Asking Residents to Check Their Cameras

AUSTIN — The Austin Police Department is investigating a series of tire slashings in Southeast Austin and asking the neighborhood for help. Investigators have received reports of 12 separate tire-slashing incidents in the area since Aug. 1, the department said, as reported by KXAN and FOX 7 Austin.

The incidents are clustered around homes and apartment complexes near Maybel Davis District Park. APD held a news conference on the series, provided safety tips, and asked residents to stay alert and check their security camera footage — the department is looking for footage that may lead to identification of a suspect, FOX 7 reported. No suspect description has been released in the coverage the desk read.

Tire slashings are the kind of crime that spreads its cost quietly: a vehicle that cannot be driven to work, a repair bill that was in nobody's budget, and a street that starts parking differently at night. Twelve reports over three months is a pattern, which is why the department is treating the incidents as a series rather than as separate acts of vandalism.

Residents in the Maybel Davis District Park area who find a slashed tire, or whose cameras record anything suspicious overnight, are the witnesses this investigation runs on — APD's request, as the department put it at its news conference, is for the community to review its footage and come forward. The investigation is open, and the desk will file any arrest or suspect information the department releases.