Vandals bust several windows in south Omaha neighborhood

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - Cardboard serves as windows for the South Omaha Animal Hospital. The glass was broken out early Thursday morning.

“We get here first thing in the morning, and as I was pulling into the parking lot I noticed all the windows were shattered,” said Miranda Buchan. “Kind of picked up some of the glass, had my veterinarian get here, we called the cops.”

The animal hospital wasn’t the only place along Q Street between 29th and 36th that was hit. The Kwik Shop had its doors and windows busted too. There’s also big damage at Omaha’s brand new Fire Station 31 -- a window shattered and a city vehicle in the parking lot suffered major damage.

“About 2:50 on Thursday morning, we started receiving phone calls of destruction of property on the Q Street corridor between 29th and 36th Street,” said Ofc. Chris Gordon with Omaha Police. “As of right now, we’ve got about eight businesses we have documented damage to.”

Whoever is responsible has no boundaries -- they even busted windows out at a church. St. Mary’s Catholic Church lost more than windows. It’s stained glass that was broken -- pictures that will be hard, perhaps impossible, to restore.

A string of properties along Q Street in south Omaha have had their windows smashed out -- some for the third or fourth time.

Jamie Gutierrez is the CEO of Midwest Maintenance. She says she hasn’t had issues with vandals for years until lately.

“Once the gang unit came out and kind of took care of that, we haven’t had anything,” Gutierrez said. “Over the last two months, we’ve had broken windows. This is the fourth time yesterday morning.”

“I was here, a couple of people here first at 7:30 found our warehouse with smashed windows over here, front windows smashed. A brick flew through my office, luckily it didn’t hit the glass table inside. This is the fourth time, and it’s well over $10,000 at this point.”

Jamie says the damage to her business and all the others along Q Street makes no sense, and it has to stop.

“It’s crazy, I don’t understand it,” Gutierrez said. “It’s really sad if it’s someone in the neighborhood that’s trashing their own neighborhood. The entrepreneurs, business owners and schools here in south Omaha work hard to make this a better place.”

Omaha Police urge anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at (402) 444-7867 (STOP).

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