Dozens of parked cars across Denver's Capitol Hill neighborhood have turned up with slashed tires in recent weeks, and police still have not made an arrest. The vandalism has been concentrated near 11th Avenue and Sherman Street, including vehicles parked on the street and in the lot of an apartment complex at 1050 Sherman Street, leaving residents to pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket while detectives keep working the case.
Accounts of just how widespread the damage has become vary depending on who's counting. According to FOX31 Denver, the station's own crews counted at least a dozen vehicles with slashed tires near Sherman Street and 11th Avenue, while one resident told the station he counted 20 cars with flat tires. Denver police have not made any arrests in the investigation, and the station reports the case remains open.
Neighbors Describe Finding Their Tires Popped
Hillary Wozniak found a hole in her truck's tire and said there was no mistaking what happened. “You can see clear as day that somebody has popped them,” she told the outlet. Wozniak ended up paying $400 to replace two of her truck's tires, calling the situation “super unfortunate for the people who work really hard.”
Ethan Aubert also had a tire slashed and doesn't expect to see any of that money back. “You can follow up with the cops and with the citation or whatever that they started, but I'm not going to see any money from it,” he said. Aubert added simply that “it's not really a cool thing to do.”
Police Say Two Groups May Be Involved
In messaging shared on Nextdoor, the Denver Police Department said the vehicle-related reports may actually stem from two separate groups rather than one. “These are likely two separate groups as one involved broken windows with a BB gun and the other involved tire slashes,” the department wrote. Police said additional patrols would be placed in the affected areas and that detectives are actively investigating the incidents.
The Capitol Hill investigation remains ongoing.
A Pattern Playing Out Across the Metro Area
The Capitol Hill reports aren't an isolated cluster. The outlet's earlier reporting found that multiple residents' tires were slashed within the span of just a few days elsewhere in the Denver metro, with some residents believing one suspect was behind dozens of the slashings — though authorities had not confirmed whether all of the incidents were connected. In one of those cases, security cameras caught a man slashing the tire of a Honda parked on the street at midnight on a Wednesday.
A separate, earlier spree showed how costly and prolonged these waves of vandalism can become. Denver police told Denver7 that more than 38 vehicles were targeted over the course of a month and a half near the Northfield Apartments, with vandalism reported overnight on Dec. 31, Jan. 7 and Jan. 28 involving cars parked on the street and in the complex's north parking lot. One resident in that case spent more than $600 replacing three tires after her car was slashed twice, and police said at the time they had no information on a suspect or suspects. Northfield at Stapleton Apartments responded by installing surveillance cameras throughout the property.
For now, Capitol Hill residents are left watching their own cars warily while Denver police continue working the case without a named suspect.
