Boston police probe multiple reports of cars vandalized in post-storm parking space disputes

By Colin A. Young, Globe Correspondent

Boston police are investigating vandalism to parked cars in several neighborhoods, all of which are believed to be related to parking spaces that had been shoveled out after last weekend’s snowstorm.

Between Monday and Wednesday, officers responded to at least seven reports of vandalism in Dorchester, Brighton, East Boston, Charlestown, and Roxbury, police said. Though the type of damage incurred in each incident differed, police said they were all related to shoveled-out parking spaces.

On Tuesday morning, officers responded to Byron Street in East Boston where a resident told officers he found two of his tires slashed. The man told police that on Monday he moved a chair from a snow-free parking space and then proceeded to park his car in the spot.

On Brighton’s Litchfield Street on Tuesday, a woman told police someone slashed one of her tires overnight. According to police, the woman moved items intended to save the space prior to parking her car. Also in Brighton on Tuesday, a man reported to police that his car had been damaged overnight from what appeared to be “someone throwing a hard plastic sawhorse against it,” police said.

In Roxbury, a man reported the passenger-side window of his car had been shattered on Elm Hill Park overnight. Police said the man’s car was partially blocking a neighbor’s cleared parking space.

In Dorchester on Wednesday, a man found the front tires of his car slashed after parking on Mayfield Street overnight, police said.

In Boston, residents with parking stickers are allowed to use space savers to reserve street parking spots they cleared of snow up until 48 hours after the city lifts the snow emergency.

The snow emergency put in place for last weekend’s blizzard was lifted at 6 p.m. Tuesday.