By Vern Hollister - Correspondent

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300 tires found slashed on residents' vehicles, ATVs, lawnmowers

While the village slept during the heavy rain Sunday night June 3, Goodman residents awakened Monday morning, June 4, as usual, to leave for work, only to be jolted by anger and dismay when they discovered slashed tires. Not just one tire or one vehicle, but all four tires, sometimes the spare, and on every car and truck that sat in the yard, out front, or in a parking area located off the street.

From one end of the town to the other, residents arose to slashed tires on multiple vehicles at single dwellings, theirs and ones across the street or in a neighbor's drive, and also to slashed rubber on lawnmowers and all-terrain vehicles, as well. Some estimates placed the number of vehicles with all four tires flat at 75, the combination higher.

Scott Dolatowski said that both he and his wife work a night shift, one in Iron Mountain, the other in Norway, Michigan. When they pulled in at 7:15 a.m. Monday morning, Dolatowski said he noticed the car remaining at their house riding low to the ground. When he inspected, he discovered four slashed tires. At first, he thought he'd been singled out. After he placed a 911 call, he found out he was not alone.

"I was hostile," he said. "While I waited for the sheriff, I drove around and counted 49 vehicles just in that time. All four tires had been slashed."

What he did not know was that the sheriff and deputies were already in town. Ray Tobias, waiting at the Mobil Station for help, said, "We got woken up at 6:30 in the morning by the Marinette County sheriff. He talked to the wife (Sara). They were just going through. It wasn't just us."

Their discovery of the tire slashing came from being awakened and informed by law enforcement. Not only were the tires on Ray's wife's car slashed, but they could look across the street and see another vehicle with flat tires, or down the street to see a truck parked on a vacant lawn with four more flats. Some tires had two slash marks for good measure.

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"I couldn't believe it," Tobias said. "We didn't hear anything. We went to bed at 12:30. It had to happen after that. I just came back from Phoenix, and a month before that bought tires. Then this happens. I can't afford tires," he said. "I bought two tires, used the spare, and am getting one from a friend. A lot of people," Tobias said, "were walking the streets this morning pretty pissed off."

The busiest place in Goodman, located just east of the Forest County line and at the far western end of Marinette County was Bill Stankevich's Goodman Mobil and Town Garage. Stacks of new tires trucked in by Pomp's tires awaited installation on either side of the entrance. While Bill handled calls and took care of business, his nephew and assistant, Brian Stankevich, worked to change flat tires. Some angry residents had driven them slowly, on four flats, to be changed. Others called towing companies, and Russ of Russ' Towing from Pembine waited to remove a vehicle from his flatbed when Stankevich had time.

The vandalism appeared to be indiscriminate. Any and all vehicles parked along streets, off streets, in private spaces, from the mill side of town to the highway 8 exit on the eastern edge. “Another bad part of this," Stankevich said, "is it happened to people who had to respond to an emergency like fire and rescue squad members, and in the rain."

To get to Mike Grahn's vehicle area, the tire slasher had to cross the lawn and into a private parking space where four vehicles were stored. More than one resident mentioned a truck that Grahn had recently finished and re-styled and which had $2,000 worth of tires. A truck alongside, another vehicle, and Grahn's work truck, all were with four slashed tires nearly under the eaves where rain must have splashed.

By noon, Stankevich, also the town chairman, said they'd changed twenty tires, and tow trucks had been in town all morning. People had begun calling before 7 a.m. What Pomp's did, according to Stankevich, was to deliver a load of tires of various popular sizes. Some took it upon themselves, with spare transportation that escaped vandalism, to drive to Iron Mountain, for example, and get their own tires. As one resident said, "Mine was locked in the garage."

For some, hardship became a greater hardship. Sara Tobias said that they had just put on the new tires, and now to buy another, "It's a struggle," she said, with six young children, to have to buy tires a month apart. Others would have to fork over money because insurance deductibles, as one said was $250.

Dolatowski expressed similar financial concerns and worked in his yard to do his own repair work. "These are brand new tires," he said. "I have four flat tires, four tire plugs. They slashed all four. I don't have no money for new tires."

As he repaired them, Dolatowski pounded the plugs into the slash marks and pumped air from a portable compressor into the injured rubber and hoped it would do. For work, he and his wife travel approximately 75 miles a night, and good tires are a necessity.

Most believe that the slasher moved silently in the early morning rain, when it would seem few others were out. By Monday afternoon, squad cars and law enforcement personnel had left, and reports circulated among community members that they had taken a person of interest into custody. This person was questioned and released pending further investigation. No one has yet been arrested.

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