Weekend plans slashed by vandalism

Tyler Mcleod has kept his deflated tires in the back of his Ford Escape since the incident. Photo courtesy of Tyler Mcleod

By April Lawrence

BELLEVILLE – There was an unpleasant surprise for Loyalist pre-health student Tyler Mcleod on the night of Nov. 22, when he went to his car.

Mcleod was going to head home to Renfrew for his brother’s birthday, when he found that three of the four tires on his yellow Ford Escape had been slashed in the residence parking lot. He had just had brand new winter tires put on the car for about $800.

“It was a rough weekend,” said Mcleod.

He had to buy new tires on a line of credit because he didn’t have enough cash to pay for them.

Mcleod vented about his tires being slashed on the Facebook page Spotted at Loyalist. He said he didn’t intend to send in his post because he was just writing it to vent. But he accidentally submitted his message by pressing enter when he was trying to add a space. In the end he’s glad it was posted, he said: he has gotten a lot of good feedback and was able to get new tires thanks to the post.

Postson the Spotted page are normally anonymous but Mcleod decided he wanted to attach a face, so identified himself as the writer in the comment section.

“I had someone reach me on Facebook saying they had a boyfriend who was a mechanic and that he could come to me and put them on. Instead of me paying for a tow truck to bring them to Canadian Tire, so instead of spending about $600 to $800 on that, I spent around $260. So it was a lot cheaper than I thought. I was very excited about that.”

But because he had just bought new tires, he didn’t have the cash to pay the $260 for the replacements, and had to put the payment on a line of credit.

Mcleod said it looked like the tires were cut with something sharp, like a knife or a screwdriver. The cuts were clean.

He went to college security and they filled out a report for him and contacted the police. But there wasn’t much the police could do because there was no footage on the security cameras, he said.

Dianne Spencer, the college’s executive director of advancement and external relations, said standard procedure is to fill out a college incident report and then contact the police.

“College security and college staff work very closely with (the police) to ensure that they have the information, any information, which is required and which is available,” Spencer said.

The investigation is directed by the police not college security or staff, she added.

Mcleod is taking steps to protect himself from having this happen again. He now parks where he knows his car is within view of security cameras.