ATLANTA — Atlanta Police said 20 cars were broken into early Wednesday morning at an apartment complex.
Around 4:30 a.m., officers arrived at the apartments at 1374 Murphy Ave. in southwest Atlanta in reference to several vehicles broken into.
Once they arrived, they discovered 20 vehicles that had window damage. They said they spoke with three victims who reported items missing.
Residents say the complex is populated by seniors on fixed incomes. Syderrius Baugh is often at the Gateway Capitol View apartment complex to visit and check on his mother. He said that he woke up Wednesday morning to find his mother's car window smashed in.
“This morning I woke up and 26 people’s cars had been broken into, and my mom was one of them,” he said.
Baugh said the situation is extremely frustrating, not just for him and his mom, but all of the residents who call the apartment complex home.
“It’s just ridiculous because these people here are on fixed incomes, and sometimes the community acts like they don’t really care about the seniors over here," he said. "So, we had to get the city councilman involved and some of the police chiefs involved today so that they can come and help these people out over here.”
To Baugh, the situation is about more to the community than just this one incident.
“The community is outraged. As far as the seniors here, they are upset about the things that are going on in the community and there’s nothing being done about it," he said.
Gateway Capitol View resident Watina Penamon said she has suffered from similar incidents at the complex several times before.
“This is really a tragedy. It’s just horrible the way that we are being attacked, and vandalized here, and singled out. It just doesn’t make sense. This has happened to me four times," Penamon said.
Mandy Maddox, who checks on her mother periodically at the complex, said that she believes the community needs more security too.
“I’ve heard about the break-ins several times, and I’ve asked ‘What are the management companies doing about security?’” Maddox told 11Alive. “Even though they say security is on-site, but security is only here for maybe a few hours a night. So what about during the wee hours of the morning when crime usually happens?”
Atlanta City Councilman Antonio Lewis, who represents the local district, said he wants change.
“I think it’s going to happen again. I think it’s going to continue to happen until we do things to help it stop happening." Lewis said. "Working with the Atlanta Police Department, they have already started the discussion of the Atlanta Police Department tapping into the camera system at the Gateway Towers. I think that’s one way we are going to prevent it. But we also have got to talk about getting off-duty police officers to work here.”
The local representative believes the car break-ins are having a financially crippling effect on residents.
“One of the biggest issues at this high rise right here, there was no help to help the residents pay for their windows," he said. "They don’t have the money to help pay for this.”
To remedy that, Lewis plans to utilize his city council office to help pay for the damages.
“Another thing we are going to do for my city council office is pay for at least half of every window. We know that our seniors in this building, that people in this building are on fixed income." Lewis said. "They don’t have $200 to just pay for a window on a Wednesday morning, two weeks after they just paid their rent. So, from the city, we are going to help as much as we can as well.”
Officers are working to get suspect information and said they are canvassing the location to confirm if there are any additional victims whose vehicles sustained damage.