Woman slashes tires on 25 cars in Santa Cruz County parking lot
UPDATE: A woman was arrested for slashing dozens of tires in a parking lot in Santa Cruz County.
The incident happened in the Soquel Avenue Auto Center on Feb. 16.
Deputies with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office said the suspected tire slasher ran from the scene.
Business owners in the area say this stemmed from the woman coming to one of the auto shops to get her car serviced. Kyle Bryan with Bryan Automotive says they asked her to bring in a battery and money for the service, but she never did.
“We were working on her car and she was supposed to get some money and a battery for her car to work on and then we gave her a week to get us a battery and money and she wasn’t able to produce anything,” says Bryan.
He says they asked her to leave the parking lot after being there for nearly two weeks, “then the next day when we all came in there was 48 tires or whatever slashed. it was definitely jaw dropping to say the least. It was quite surprising that she didn’t just do our tires, she did everyone’s tires in the entire complex.”
Mike King who works at IO Motors nearby says several of their customers cars tires were slashed. He said he’s frustrated they work so hard to fix cars to have someone intentionally damage them, “it’s very disappointing because we want this to be a place for customers can feel safe and I want to be able to feel safe to leave my car. And we all do really work hard and tires aren’t cheap, I guess anything isn’t cheap so working hard and being able to pay for those things, it’s a dent in the pocket book.”
Investigators gathered evidence and identified the suspect as Leticia Llamas. They made contact with her when they initially got the report, but did not identify her as the suspect until a week later when they got surveillance video.
“When we first got there, we noticed that her tires hadn’t been slashed but every other vehicle there had been. so initially there was some focus on her it just took some time to really identify that she was responsible,” says Sgt. Dee Baldwin with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office.
Llamas was spotted and arrested on West Cliff Drive Thursday morning. She is facing felony vandalism charges.
Business owners say they were proud and happy the sheriff’s office was able to make an arrest and are now hoping justice is served through the rest of the system.
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A woman was arrested for slashing dozens of tires on a street in Santa Cruz County.
The incident happened in the 2800 block of Soquel Avenue on Feb. 16.
Deputies with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office said the suspected tire slasher ran from the scene.
Investigators gathered evidence and identified the suspect as Leticia Llamas.
Llamas was spotted and arrested on West Cliff Drive Thursday morning. She is facing felony vandalism charges.
