By Elizabeth Weise
The vandal who has been attacking Glen Park businesses for over two weeks struck against just past midnight Tuesday morning. Video cameras on a local business caught him in the act of spaying a thick, viscous oil on shop windows up and down Diamond St. in the 2900 block.
The man appears to be Asian, despite an earlier report that he was white or possibly Hispanic. He appears to always wear white pants, a baseball cap and sandals and carry a canvas bag, based on previous closed circuit images. The images captured Tuesday morning, however, are the clearest yet.
This time he sprayed the windows of multiple businesses with what might have been motor oil. The video tape shows him walking up and down Diamond St., circling around multiple times and then pulling a white plastic spray bottle out of his bag and spraying windows and doors.
“It took me over 30 minutes to clean off my windows,” said Tommy at the Glen Park Cleaners. Steven Chang, at Viking Sub Sandwiches, was also hit. “It was hard work cleaning it,” he said. The nail salon and Osha Thai also had their windows sprayed.
The worry, fear and constant time and money spent cleaning up after the attacker is beginning to take its toll on business owners, who report losing sleep and sometimes spending the night in their businesses to try to catch the vandal in the act. The Glen Park Deli paid to have new bars installed around its windows as protection.
According to one report, the security guard hired by CitiBank at the corner of Diamond and Bosworth actually argued with the man early one morning. The vandal still sprayed the bank’s windows. However when the guard went to call the police to report the attack he found that his phone’s battery was dead. It was impossible to confirm this story with employees at the CitiBank branch, who said they were not allowed to talk with the press. They instead gave a number of their corporate PR office, which did not return phone calls to the Glen Park News on Tuesday.
A U.S. postal employee reported that a bleach or bleach-like liquid was poured into the post boxes on Diamond St. in front of the BART station, destroying multiple letters and packages. This is the third time those boxes have been vandalized. She also reported that a post box near Flood and Detroit streets was also recently hit with a similar attack.
Officers from Ingleside Police Station came and viewed the video tape Tuesday afternoon and took statements from business owners. Reached at the station, Officer Soulette urged the public and business owners to call or email each and every time there is an incident. “If we’re getting the calls, we’re out there every day,” he said. Email can be sent to SFPDInglesideStation@sfgov.org or calls to 404-4000.