Police have arrested a man for vandalism following a string of incidents at businesses over three blocks on Glacier Highway, which occurred between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Thursday morning.
He was charged in one incident and police are seeking tips in the others while they continue the investigation.
The Juneau Police Department started getting calls about 7:30 a.m. Thursday morning when employees began arriving to work at businesses between the 9100 and 9300 blocks of Glacier Highway to find broken windows and in one case, broken lights, according to police and repair workers
The total damage is estimated at $14,500, according to a JPD press release.
Businesses affected include lights at the back entrance of Jordan Creek Shopping Center, and windows at Juneau Pediatric Dentistry, 1st National Bank, Nuvision Credit Union, and the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store, according to workers who had repaired most of the damage by about 1:45 p.m.
Perseverance Glass Co. workers had regularly scheduled glass replacement work, but were reassigned to deal with the emergency repairs, said Sean Nichols, who was replacing a window at Nuvision with another worker. There was a similar incident in the area a week ago that involved smashed windows at two businesses, they said.
“Looks like someone needed some place to stay for the winter,” said David Morris, a Juneau resident who had come to the credit union to deposit a check and saw the damage. “There are cameras everywhere so they have to know they’d get caught.”
A single large window on the side of the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store was smashed in the middle and taped over. “There was glass everywhere,” said Steve Wilson, a cashier at the store. “Those are double-paned glass so it’s going to be really expensive to repair.” They were next on the list to have it fixed.
Police made an arrest in connection to one vandalism report from the 9300 block of Glacier Highway, according to the JPD release. Taylor Hudson Cope, 36, was charged with criminal mischief in the third degree, a class C felony offense. Cope was also held on an unrelated criminal trespass charge.
Video surveillance recordings show a suspect wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, black pants with white lettering down the right side, and white tennis-style shoes, according to police.
Police are asking any businesses in the area with exterior surveillance cameras to check recordings between the hours of 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., and report any suspicious activity to the JPD Criminal Investigations Unit at (907) 500-0632.
• Contact Meredith Jordan at meredith.jordan@juneauempire.com or (907) 615-3190.
