On the morning of Jan. 24, approximately 36 cars had their tires slashed at North Park Apartments south of Shaw across from Fresno State.

Many students and alumni of the university call the complex home, but they are now weary of what living there entails.

Teresa Abril, property manager of North Park Apartments, said security patrols the 20-acre complex during the evening, however since the property is so large, controlling criminal activity is difficult.

During shifts security guards walk and patrol the property in cars.

Abril said this kind of incident has not happened at this complex prior to Tuesday and she is working with their security team to prevent this situation from happening again.

“I feel for the residents,” Abril said. “It’s hard, and as students, that financial burden is something that is unfortunate for somebody to [place] on them.”

Abril encourages residents to file police reports, as the complex cannot make reports on a resident’s behalf.

Armando Gurrola, Fresno State alumnus, said he walked out to his car around 7:30 a.m. and three out of four tires were slashed.

“I’m trying to remain positive. It’s an annoyance, it shouldn’t happen — that’s why we pay [for]  security,” Gurrola said, as he watched his car being lifted onto a tow truck.

Gurrola said the incident takes away the feeling of security that he used to have while at home, where he has been a long time resident.

“I love this neighborhood,” Gurrola said. “It’s my neighborhood.”

Although this incident won’t break the bank for him, Gurrola said, it is an unnecessary expense caused by unnecessary behavior. He is more concerned about the impact the tire slashings could have on current students.

“A lot of the people that live here are students, so that’s going to impact them a little bit worse than it has impacted me,” Gurrola said.

Among this incident, Gurrola is also alarmed by other crime like recent sexual assaults and thefts that have been occurring on and around the university.

Meng Xiong, Fresno State alumnus, said as he was about to leave to grab his morning coffee in his sister’s car at around 7:45 a.m., his neighbor stopped him to ask if he had seen his tires.

His neighbor explained to him that almost everybody had their tires slashed, including the car he was driving.

Xiong then looked at his car that was parked, his other sister’s car and his girlfriend’s car, and saw the tires on those cars were flat as well.

This incident will impact him financially, Xiong said, but sympathizes with students who he knows already struggle financially.

“It’s not easy to get a tire fixed. A tire costs about 40 to 60 bucks for a used one,” Xiong said. “It takes money to just tow your car to the tire shop, and you don’t have the tools to do it yourself too. So financially, it’ll impact you big time.”

Xiong said that knowing somebody invaded his privacy impacts him emotionally as well.

“It’s like someone just coming to your house breaking your stuff,” he said.

He understands the complex won’t be able to do much in terms of catching the culprit, but would like the management to increase the amount of security walking around more frequently at night, he said.  

Xiong is a two-year resident at the complex and has also seen cars that were broken into. However, the tire slashing has been a first for him.

The morning of the incident, Fresno Police Department received one incident report for vandalism at the complex. However, no other details were available regarding the incident reported.