Early Thursday morning, students and community members near the university found their car windows broken, but none of their belongings missing.
The victims had to file their own police reports, the Fort Worth Police Department said. The police reports specified the incidents as acts of “criminal mischief.”
The reports said that between the hours of 12:15 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. “unknown suspect(s) intentionally or knowingly caused damage to the victims’ vehicles.”
There have been no reports of any theft, just a large number of broken car windows, the Fort Worth Police Department said.
Junior film-television-digital media major Trevor Harris said police officers told him that some kids were driving around shooting car windows with a pellet or BB gun.
Harris found several glass marbles near his vehicle and his roommate’s vehicle. He said he believed the suspects may have also had a slingshot.
Harris said his roommate woke him up at 3:30 a.m. because a police officer was outside the house investigating. He said he saw his back windshield and driver window had been broken along with his roommate’s driver window.
The reporting officers on the case were unable to be reached for comment.
According to an online crime report map from the Fort Worth Police Department, incident reports were filed from residents on Lubbock Avenue, Jeanette Drive, Bellaire Drive North, Benbrook Boulevard, Waits Avenue, Biddison Street, Kell Street and Trail Lake Drive.
Walter Keahui, an Angelo State University alumnus who lives near campus on Jeanette Drive, was also a victim of the criminal mischief. He said police officers told him they had already found over 10 damaged cars by the time they got to his street.
There have been rumors circulating on Facebook and among many students as to whom was actually responsible for the “criminal mischief.”
Junior finance and marketing double major Makenzie Smith said she heard SMU students were responsible for the damage.
“The man who fixed my car said some of the other people whose cars he’d also fixed told him SMU boys were driving around with a pellet gun, targeting cars with TCU stickers on the back as a prank before the Iron Skillet game,” Smith said.
Keahui and Harris said Fort Worth police officials told them high school students were responsible. The police reports have not specified who was responsible for the damaged cars.
SGA President Jackie Wheeler said she did not think SMU students were responsible because TCU students were not the only victims targeted. The suspects also targeted people who were not TCU students, like Keahui, and commercial businesses, like Cafe Bella and the Donut Palace, Wheelersaid.
“I don’t want TCU students to blame SMU students when we can’t actually prove what happened,” Wheeler said. “The last time [TCU] experienced a similar incident, it ended up being a 40-year-old man.”
Harris said it cost him $425 to fix both of his broken windows.
Harris, Keahaui and Smith all said they would like to see compensation for the damages if the suspects are caught.
Fire Marshals and the Fort Worth Police Department are working together to catch those responsible, Wheeler said.
