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April ‘fuel’ prank leaves tires flat
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In an attempt at an April Fools’ Day political statement, tires on more than 300 cars near the UW campus were deflated Tuesday.
Messages stuck in the cars’ windshield wipers said “Happy Fossil Fuel Day! Drive Less.”
Joel DeSpain, public information officer for the Madison Police Department, said police have no description of anyone responsible, but speculate it could have been an environmental group.
Cars parked on Iota Court, Langdon, Monroe and Williamson Streets had BB gun pellets placed inside their air caps, putting pressure on the valves and slowly deflating tires.
Generally one tire was deflated on each car.
MPD started receiving complaints about flat tires early Tuesday morning and by the afternoon was receiving so many calls dispatchers started referring people to fill out complaint reports online, DeSpain said.
DeSpain said MPD is not going to assign detectives to investigate the case further because “there are a lot of other bigger crimes going on in the community.”
“We realize people have been inconvenienced, and it was not a nice thing to do, but at the same time it’s not serious property damage, and no one has been injured,” DeSpain said.
Mike Barreau, the second-shift dispatcher at Schmidt’s Auto Inc. of Madison said Schmidt’s employees were dispatched to at least 100 flat tires on the UW campus.
The auto body usually charges $40 to pump up deflated tires, but for this situation it charged $20, Barreau said.
“Part of me says it’s hilarious, and the part of me that’s working says it’s sort of cruel,” he said. “I wonder if these guys wonder how much money they are costing people.”
UW sophomore Megan Fahey said she returned to the University House Langdon parking lot around 12:15 p.m. to find her car and two other friends’ cars with flat tires.
“Since all of us had flats, I assumed someone slashed them,” Fahey said.
Fahey called the non-emergency police dispatcher who told her a group of people protesting fossil fuels were deflating tires all around the city.
According to Fahey, many of the cars parked on Langdon Street not directly in front of a window had tires deflated.
“I mean it’s not really effective,” she said about deflating tires. “People still had to have a tow truck come and waste his fossil fuel. It was very, very rude, and now I’m nervous to go park my car there again.”
Fahey and her friends paid $44 each for a towing company to refill the tires.
“This should probably be the main concern for the downtown cops for the next couple days,” she said. “[The culprits] were clearly very sneaky, and no one caught them.”
DeSpain said anyone caught will likely be charged with a disorderly conduct misdemeanor ticket.
“Fun is fun, but this is sort of over the line,” Barreau said.
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IP hash: 2f75a4a2
Yeah, muggings and robbery cases should really be put on the back burner so that these maniacs can be brought to justice and we can assure that sorority girls can drive four blocks to class.
IP hash: db0c3085
If people were not to notice that they had a flat time (which is entirely possible), then the occupants of the car are at serious risk of injury and/or death. The perpetrators should be put in jail for a while so they can learn their lesson.
Only in Madison…
IP hash: 72868174
What a bunch of A-holes!
IP hash: 8eae1fa6
Well… I think you’d know what we should say about these silly liberals. Guess we need to break out our Burkenstocks, hemp necklaces and head out and hug a freakin’ tree.
My April fool’s joke to these commie liberal fools was driving an EXTRA 15 minutes yesterday… for NOTHING!
IP hash: 4481026f
My sincere hope is that this prank wasn’t perpetrated by an environmental group, but rather by a bunch of idiot kids who had an idea of how to not get caught. If it was an environmental group, they are the biggest f*ing idiots ever.
IP hash: b3caab52
As an official response to this, I will be gathering all the old tires laying around my family’s farm back home and burning them in one gigantic fire. In addition I will be throwing gallons of waste oil on the fire. I will post pictures on Facebook, and videos on YouTube.
IP hash: ac4788ca
That’s the end of my support for liberal causes! To hell with Obama bin Laden and Hillary “My husband’s a horny geek-boy and I can’t do anything about it” Clinton! I’m voting for McCain!
IP hash: ac4788ca
What gets to me is that they deflated so many tires all over downtown and nobody even noticed. No suspects. Nada. Nobody saw a thing. It shows how attentive people are.
IP hash: 2560700c
I really hope you did drive around pointlessly… you can waste your own gas money, and when the effects of fossil fuel use finally sets in full force, you can blame yourself. Not to further question your power trip and false feelings of manliness, but you conservative douchebags have yet to learn that not everyone left of Reagan is a liberal/commie, that the two are interchangeable, or that Clinton and Barack are closet Socialists. Liberals would be complaining even louder about their tires being deflated, because they are as petty, lazy, and hypocritical as anyone.
IP hash: e725cc59
7:35 Since this was done as part of an April fool’s day, I would not at all be suprised if the people who did it are conservative and making a mockery of liberal…don’t be too fast to jump to conlusions
And you have the logic mentality and reasoning skills of a 7th grader
IP hash: b0277101
Fossil fuels are stupid, but deflating people’s tires is phenomenally stupid.
I apologize for the actions of my fellow liberals.
IP hash: 042e4322
@ 7:35 AM. Good for you!
This kind of shenanigans makes me glad I drive a moped to and from class every day. Tree-huggers, did the ends justify the means? Those 100 tow-trucks that were dispatched probably tripled the size of the carbon footprint those cars would have made yesterday.
I have a feeling the ridiculousness of this prank will fall on deaf ears, considering many students here worship the cult of Environmentalism and have no respect for humankind.
IP hash: 0a3b2525
ummm this happens every year.
IP hash: 60e9c4fe
Hey 7:35, don’t lump all liberals together. There are misguided extremists on every side like the idiots that blow up abortion clinics (and the people inside). Your post is as bad as the people who flattened the tires.
IP hash: d59c084e
Probably a lot of tire damage - what fun.
I’d suggest a flat toe in return.
IP hash: 363e3380
Some people out there are actually responsible for limiting their usage of their cars. I haven’t touched my car in over two weeks now, (I’ve been bussing out to the West side since January for work.) and now this! Now some hippies want to punish those who do the right thing.
Don’t they have something better to do, like studying or drinking or something? They end up even making conservatives look good when compared to these morons.
IP hash: 22ba2b1b
My April fool’s joke to these commie liberal fools was driving an EXTRA 15 minutes yesterday… for NOTHING!
wow. way to prove a point. i love the all for me mentality….
anyways, it seems that you would be the type of person who would complain about the 44 bucks to have someone fill a flat tire, when you could easily put on the spare and drive 2 mintues to fill up the flat for free and replace the tire. but would that be too difficult for you? i realize your very busy and your time is most valuable, but if youre willing to pay the 44 bucks… seriously.
IP hash: 367135cb
“Police have no description of anyone responsible” I’ll give you a description… they have long greasy hair, smell bad, and wearing a hemp necklace.
IP hash: e8d5a554
I’m fairly certain it was less about promoting environmentalism and more about just coming up with an excuse for an april fool’s joke.
IP hash: e7a6996a
yeah- most of us liberals would never vandalize anybody’s property for something so stupid- especially because of all the fuel wasted in the effort to refill tires. i hope they realize that there are a lot of GOOD reasons for driving and a lot of us carpool out of necessity- we don’t have $40 extra to spend on getting our tires pumped. i don’t think they took into account that some of us drive to volunteer, drive home to visit our grandparents, etc.
IP hash: 213641d5
The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stone.
The Bronze Age did not end because we ran out of bronze.
The Iron Age did not end because we ran out of iron.
The Oil Age will not end because we ran out of oil.
The universe runs on nuclear power - so should we.
IP hash: ba539b8b
A crime is still a crime. It involved trespassing on private property and damage to private property. Oh, and if the cops think they have more important crimes to investigate, then why are they spending all their time at the bars arresting underage students while Madison’s crime rate is continuing to rise.
IP hash: 1e4159a9
what jerkoffs, if I caught them messing with my car they wouldn’t be having an april fool’s day laugh they’d be licking their wounds
IP hash: 673d1278
megan fahey here, i actually am in a sorority, and i do drive four blocks to class because of a little thing called a TUMOR in my right leg. i can’t walk, so keep blogging at 4 30 in the morning. thanks!
IP hash: fbeace1d
I think this was a wonderful April “Fuel’s” Day prank. I think you are all taking it too seriously. No need to name-call and lump people into groups just because you don’t understand what it means to do an act to raise consciousness.
IP hash: f56bfcff
It’s very cool. Go team! I love this sort of protest. Too bad the Sorority Girls had to burn some of their shoe budget.
http://www.beanstockd.com/beanstockd/2008/04/03/someone-please-deflate-the-jonas-brothers-tires/
IP hash: b07864a3
WTF? Why would you pay to reinflate a tire? Does nobody own a compressor?