Crime & Safety

Anonymous Group Claims Responsibility for Parking Meter Vandalism

'Over the past week, we glued the coin and card slots of 54 parking meters along Edgewood, Auburn, Jessie Hill, Ponce de Leon, and DeKalb Ave.'

SWEET AUBURN DISTRICT — An anarchist group is claiming to have vandalized scores of parking meters across the city, including several on Decatur Street/DeKalb Avenue and Edgewood and Auburn avenues.

The group, which sent an e-mail to East Atlanta Patch early Sunday morning, did not identify itself, but said it glued or tampered with some 54 meters in the city, including some on Ponce de Leon Avenue and Jesse Hill Jr. Drive SE.

In the e-mail, the group it took the measure in response to the Dec. 9 death of Ian Tyler Stark in Bloomington, Ind. and the Nov. 19 shooting death of Jesús "Chuy" Huerta, in Durham, N.C.

Stark, a 24, year-old homeless man, was found dead in the stairwell of an apartment building.

Huerta, who was arrested on a trespassing charge and in a police cruiser, had a gunshot wound to the head. Police say the shooting was self-inflicted but the the 17-year-old high school student's family question that and charge that police haven't released enough information.

Here is the e-mail the group sent to Patch:

"Over the past week, we glued the coin and card slots of 54 parking meters along Edgewood, Auburn, Jessie Hill, Ponce de Leon, and DeKalb Ave.

Additionally, some 7 meters were partially glued shut. Because of carelessness or mechanicle [sic] error, some meters had the coin slots glued shut but the credit-card slots left open, or vice versa. We found if we did not hold the glue in place with a piece of scrap metal, it had the potential of running down the machine before drying.

Lastly, five electronic ParkAtlanta pay-machines were glued shut which, we hoped, would free up parking for 35 additional spaces. We have since found out that customers can pay for any parking spot within an area at any of these machines nearby. Those who endeavor to disable these machines in the future should work with this knowledge: you have to destroy all of the machines on a strip in order for the payment process to be frozen.

We were inspired by the brave fighters in Bloomington, Indiana who have taken militant action in memory of a homeless man, Ian Stark, who froze to death in the town recently. Following his death, roughly 70 people lit torches, passed out fliers, disabled parking meters, slashed tires, and threw paint at banks to destroy the mythic social peace which conceals the painful, and fatal, reality of class society.

We were also moved by the friends and family of Jesus "Chuy" Huerta, a 17-year old who died of a gunshot wound while handcuffed in the backseat of a Durham Police cruiser in Durham, North Carolina. Following his death, in late November, hundreds of friends and residents marched through downtown Durham throwing fireworks and smoke bombs at police, smashing windows at the police station, and breaking a window of a DPD squad car. A month after his death, just a few days ago, hundreds held a vigil for Chuy and were dispersed when riot police shot tear gas into the crowd of friends and family (including very young children.)

This action was for the brave ones who decided to send the tear gas canisters back at the police alongside rocks and bottles.

for the commune"

Vandalism of meters is a crime in Atlanta.

It's not clear if this group is the same one behind the August 2012 tampering of parking meters in the city, including scores along Edgewood Avenue.

While the city gets revenue from the parking meters, the boxes are owned by PARKatlanta, a unit of Duncan Solutions, an Australian company that provides parking enforcement services to municipalities and other entities worldwide.

Its U.S. headquarters are in Milwaukee.


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