By Elizabeth Weise
For a week now, an early-morning vandal has been attacking Glen Park businesses on Diamond Street, setting fires, smearing excrement on store fronts, smashing windows and doors and disabling locks. Both the police and fire department are investigating and they ask that all tips be called in to the police tips line at (415) 575-4444.
The attacks began in the early morning hours of Tuesday night, Sept. 25. Someone pushed burning papers and rags through the mail slot at the Glen Park Mail Depot at 2912 Diamond St., said manager Anne Cho.
Then early Wednesday morning at about 3:00 AM fires were set at three Diamond St. businesses: Glen Park Mail Depot, Glen Park Delicatessen and Grocery and CitiBank,. Thankfully, a homeless man who was sleeping next to the Glen Park BART station saw this activity and called police. He described the arsonist as not a young man, and possibly either white or Hispanic. The fire department came and quickly put out the fires, but the arsonist had fled. “We’re so grateful to him,” Cho said.
On Wednesday night or Thursday morning someone smeared a mixture of feces, salt and grease on the windows and doors at Glen Park Mail Depot and CitiBank, says Cho. The next day nothing happened, but then on Friday someone once again smeared feces and other material mixed together on Glen Park Mail Depot and CitiBank. They also stuffed small pieces of wood and other objects into the locks at the three businesses, requiring hours of work to open them.
Around this time someone also poured multiple bottles of liquid Spick n’ Span cleaner into the mail boxes in front of the BART station on Diamond Street. Bottles were left outside the mailbox and Cho was able to save one to give to police. “I’m becoming a detective,” she said.
There were no attacks on Saturday. On Sunday night or Monday morning there appear to have been two separate attacks. Early in the morning, possibly between 4 and 6 AM two young men or boys broke into Viking Sub at 2906 Diamond St. They made off with $180 says Cho. They’re not believed to be related to the other vandalism. That same night the locks on Glen Park Delicatessen and Grocery and Citibank were vandalized as before.
Glen Park Cleaners was also smeared with feces on Monday morning.
“We need to catch this man,” says Cho. “He needs to go to the hospital.”