Car window smashing has become a real scourge in Montreal’s Centre-Sud neighborhood, where residents are now afraid to park their cars in the neighborhood.
At least twenty parked cars were found with their windows broken between Wednesday and last Monday, often with a messy interior, which appeared to have been searched, often with nothing stolen, according to witnesses obtained by The Journal between Wednesday and last Monday.
Most of them were located on Beaudry, de la Visitation, de Montcalm and Atateken streets.
Anthony Pageau, who lives in the neighborhood, said he found his car on Rue Beaudry on Monday with the passenger window shattered.
“We have no way of protecting ourselves,” he explains. I don’t have a parking lot so I have no choice but to park on the street. »
He doesn’t understand why his car was attacked as he “had nothing left in it” and nothing was stolen. “It’s really annoying,” he regrets.
gone mainstream
David Halley Ponce Lopez explains that these unpleasant surprises have become commonplace in the industry.
After finding his own car with a smashed window on Christmas Day, he said he saw another near his home in the same condition last week before seeing four others on Monday.
Photo Olivier Faucher
David Halley Ponce Lopez notes that vandalism attempting to steal from inside cars is so rampant in the neighborhood that he’s afraid to leave his car on the street.
“It looks like the person goes from window to window and smashes them all in a fairly recurring fashion. I want to live in a neighborhood where I’m not afraid to leave my car on the street. »
Anaïs Basso, who does not own a car, said she saw “at least seven” cars destroyed in the same way on Rue de la Visitation on Sunday. According to her, almost no car parked on the route was spared.
It is expensive
Each time, the gesture costs hundreds of dollars for victims, who must choose between paying a hefty amount for the insurance deductible or simply paying for the repair themselves.
“I’m a single mom and $700 at a time for a deductible is a lot of money,” says Judith Laine, who found her car in the parking lot in front of her apartment building among five vehicles with a broken window.
She “didn’t even pick up her rental car during the repairs” for fear that the same fate would befall it.
Photo provided by David Halley Ponce Lopez
One of the cars that suffered that fate was photographed Monday by resident David Halley Ponce Lopez.
mayor arrested
The Montreal Police Department turned down our interview request at Neighborhood Station 22, which covers most of the plague-affected area.
“Without addressing a specific number of cases that would have occurred in the territory of the neighborhood station [PDQ] Rest assured that the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal takes in-vehicle thefts seriously and will spare no effort to investigate and stop them,” spokeswoman Anik de Repentigny said.
Several citizens believe that security in the neighborhood is deteriorating and are directly challenging Mayor Valérie Plante.
“In Ville-Marie we will tell each other that things are really not going well,” notes Félix, a 34-year-old resident whose car was also destroyed on Monday. The mayor of Montreal is her neighborhood, so she should go there more often. »
“She should take care of that and make the area safer instead of blocking roads and making cycle paths everywhere,” adds Judith Laine.
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