Shortly before 4:30 am this morning, Mesa officers responded to a call for subjects letting air out of car tires at 1360 W. Isabella in Mesa, the Garden Place Apartments. Officers arrived in less than a minute and located two subjects matching the description. Seeing the police, the subjects separated and ran from officers. Minutes later the subjects were located and detained.
One of the subjects had a cut on his hand and eventually a bloody knife, believed to be used to slash the tires, was located along the path our suspects ran. The subjects were questioned and eventually transported to the main station for interviews with our investigators. Suspect Nicholas James Rourke (22 years old), confessed to slashing the tires to numerous vehicles within the apartment complex parking lot. He was intoxicated and stated he did it because he was upset over losing some money. Rourke stated that he cut his hand on the knife, which he later discarded, while puncturing car tires. As of this release, we have located a total of seventeen vehicles, including one motorcycle, with punctured tires. Rourke was booked on seventeen counts of Criminal Damage.
The other subject, a 30-year-old white male, was released pending further investigation. The Fiesta Patrol District has experienced two previous tire slashing incidents and, while we continue to evaluate all three cases, we have not tied this suspect to the other incidents.
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