Taylorsville police arrested two adults and two juveniles Tuesday in connection with a recent vandalism spree.
Police believe the group shot nearly a dozen car and house windows and slashed the tires of at least one vehicle over several days in late Mach and early April.
The vandalism spree stretched from roughly 5400 South Redwood Road to approximately 2500 West and 6400 South, said Taylorsville Police Sgt. Rosie Rivera. Damage was estimated to be in the thousands of dollars.
The group was cited for investigation of misdemeanor vandalism and released. Rivera said it will be up to the Salt Lake district attorney to decide if the case warrants felony charges.
As of Wednesday, Rivera said nine vandalism cases in Taylorsville were cleared by the arrests. She expected a total of about 13, plus a couple more in other jurisdictions, to be cleared by the time the investigation is complete.
In most cases the group was allegedly shooting out windows with a pellet gun, she said. The break in the case came when a witness took down a partial license plate number of the vehicle they were in when they allegedly slashed the tires of another vehicle.
Taylorsville officer Scott Lloyd did some research with the partial plate listing and the description of the vehicle.
"He was able to track that vehicle to one that received a traffic citation in Taylorsville some time ago," Rivera said.
That eventually resulted in the four arrests. A fifth suspect, who lives out of state, was also expected to be charged.
Rivera said making arrests in vandalism cases is extremely rare.
"There's never much to go on for an investigator," she said. "Starting a case from scratch with no information other than someone is going around a neighborhood shooting out windows and then to make several arrests . . . the officer went the extra mile. He pursued the case until he was able to wrap it up."
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