BILLINGS — One street in Billings appears to be a target of car vandals in the last few months.
Car windows are being shattered, and now Elijah Madland is having to clean paintballs off of his car.
“I went outside and noticed I had paintballs all over my car, and my neighbor's window was smashed out,” Madland said Thursday.
This weekend wasn't the first time he had to clean paintballs off his car. At the beginning of the month, the same thing happened.
Madland isn't the only one in his neighborhood near Eighth Street West and Avenue E who has had to deal with the cleanup. One woman a few blocks away on Avenue B told MTN News that her window was also shattered. Another woman sent MTN pictures of her family member's damaged car that occurred a few months ago.
Those aren't the only examples. There are more, much closer to Madland.
“My roommate’s car got her back window blown out, and there’s a (VW) Bug down the street that also got their window blown out. And then two or three months ago, our neighbor, their younger daughter also got her back window blown out," said Jadyn Traub, who lives across the street from Madland.
MTN reached out to the Billings Police Department about the vandalism. Police say these cases are steady, but they don’t believe it’s part of a larger vandalism event.
That doesn't ease concerns in Madland's neighborhood.
“We’re very scared. We tried to get our camera to go that far, but it’s so hard without getting a notification for every car that drives by,” said Traub.
Madland is taking action into his own hands, hoping to catch anyone with his new dash camera who dares to try to vandalize his car again.
“I installed it because, I’m hoping that my car will be vandalized again. Even though that’s a weird saying. So I can figure out who is doing this,” Madland said.
