Richmond police cruiser set on fire in Barton Heights
A parked Richmond police cruiser was found early today on fire and with its rear windshield smashed out by a brick.
No injuries were reported in the vandalism, which was discovered about 12:50 a.m. in the 2900 block of Barton Avenue, Capt. Dave Martin said.
The cruiser had been parked along the street in Barton Heights for a short time as part of the department's strategy of placing unmanned cruisers in neighborhoods as crime deterrents.
"One of the sergeants came back and saw smoke coming from the vehicle," Martin said.
After the fire had been extinguished, police found a brick on the floor of the car, Martin said.
It was not immediately clear what had been used to start the fire, Martin said.
"We've towed it to hold for an investigation, but we couldn't tell," he said.
Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers anonymously at (804) 780-1000.
-- Joe Macenka
Reader Reactions
qhgirl the RT-D is down to like 3 reporters, they are too busy to do much research. so we’re left with these one paragraph blurbs that don’t tell us much.
You know.. it would have been nice if the RTD had been able to provide us with some statistics of other areas that have employed this strategy and the relative success of the programs.
It would have been also more useful if the RTD had any information from the RPD regarding the success of THIS strategy. It does seem that leaving a valuable piece of equipment in an area where they are trying to reduce property crime might be counterproductive unless the vehicle was better monitored. And YES.. parents need to be raising their children.. but that is not something under law enforcement’s control.. so we can’t blame them for the parent’s shortfalls.
So.. The homies are getting pretty brazen. A bit of dissing five-0 if you ask me…
L. Johnson’s reply was hilarious. The criticism of the police is a bit misguided I think.
We all know..we can pay up front by helping children as they grow up or we can pay later by incarcerating after they’ve been abandoned for years.
Go ahead and laugh at the police. I hope everyone enjoys paying for the new patrol car with their taxes and I hope you don’t need a cop because there might not be one to respond. Better be able to defend yourselves.
How is it that there are already 10 posts, and all are critical of the police??!?! How about y’all stop reading this and get to raising your children right?
I think I know who did this. It’s those guys in the Brinks Home Security commercials.
Amen ‘up it’!!!! Here I will even give you the link to apply!:
seems like a bad idea to leave a valuable piece of police equipment unmanned…what if somebody stole the car and started pulling over women late at night with it? kind of irresponsible at the least!
Of course all of the “know it all” people will come out of the wood work and make big criticism out of this one. Blaming the police again!!The police used a good tactic that many other departments use. There are a lot of police departments hiring for all of you who think you can do a better job or run the whole department!
The crooks set in on fire to be funny, knowing the parked cruiser was only a ‘dummy’. But how did they know this?! I myself didn’t even know about the scarecrow initiative—but the crooks did. Sounds like they’ve got some allies in the ‘neighborhood watch’ or in the department itself. Let’s find out who these s.o.b.‘s are.
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