Date: 11 June 2005
As of this morning, Waterloo had a total of 95 reports of broken windows, mostly during a Friday-night-to-Saturday-morning shooting rampage with a BB or pellet gun.Five of those appeared to be fresh damage, pointing to the possibility shooters returned Sunday night.In Cedar Falls, police had received 97 reports of broken windows as of Monday.Many of the cases involved parked vehicles, but the most significant case involved a house that was under construction in the Briarwood Hills addition off Greenhill Road in Cedar Falls.Workers returning to the job site Monday morning discovered the 10 windows broken, said Capt.Jeff Olson with the Cedar Falls Police Department.
"We think it is (related) because there were numerous cars that were shot out in that area, too," Olson said.
He said damage to the house alone could be thousands of dollars.
The windows of a Waterloo apartment building had also been hit by a BB or pellet, according to police reports.
A picture window to a vacant apartment at 314 Wellington St. was shot three times, as was a stained-glass door, sometime between Saturday and Monday, the report states.
Owner Scott Belden said the projectiles are likely still in the window somewhere trapped between the outside glass that they penetrated and the inside glass that stopped them.
Three piles of automobile glass on the street outside pointed to a likely link between the car window spree and the damage to the apartment window.
Belden suggested every victim could contribute $20 for a reward fund to bring the shooter or shooters to justice.
Police in both cities said they have few leads and are asking residents to report any suspicious behavior or anything that seems out of place.
"The public is our eyes and our ears," said Capt. Bruce Arends with the Waterloo Police Department.
In the meantime, Arends suggested residents take advantage of any off-street parking --- like garages or driveways --- they may have.
A parking lot didn't offer enough cover for Trinity Lutheran Church's 15-passenger van.
"We used it in the parade Friday night ... and when they came back on Saturday to move it to a different location in the parking, they found the window had been broken," said Pastor Norman Stubbendick.
The van had been parked on the church lot at 605 W. Fourth St.
Church members had planned to use the van to take children to the Bucks baseball game over the weekend.
Stubbendick said the van's large tinted window will cost about $500 to replace and is partially covered by insurance.
Automobile windows can cost anywhere from $150 to $700 to replace and replacement takes about an hour, said Becky Moore, an employee at Auto Glass Center in Waterloo.
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