Man bashes neighbor’s door with crowbar, allegedly over parking dispute
By Maggie Kent
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PHILADELPHIA, PA (WPVI) — Philadelphia police are now investigating after receiving video of an act of alleged parking aggression in the Kensington section.
Action News viewer Pat Coughlin contacted us, saying a dispute over a spot led to another man’s extreme reaction.
It happened on July 31 along the 1800 block of East Madison Street.
“He was putting cones in front of my garage here, and I thought that was a bit cavalier. So one day when I came home from work, I decided I had enough so I moved his cones and I parked my car in front of my garage,” Coughlin said. “You can see from the video what the reaction was.”
Police say the initial report was investigated as vandalism, but after seeing the video on Monday, East Detectives will be taking over the case.
It’s what Coughlin wanted from the start.
“All you get is a little slip of paper. If I’m a criminal, this emboldens me to do whatever I want. This is like a demerit from Catholic school,” Coughlin said. “What does the mean to anyone?”
The situation on the street is difficult.
“It’s chaos,” said Jiny, who lives a few doors down. “People try to hold their parking, they’ll take their chairs out, park in their spot.”
Adding to that, neighbors say precious space is also being taken up by people looking to conduct business.
“When they try to sell cars they park them on our block,” said Jiny.
“We have people that go to car auctions, bring 20 cars home, park them without registration and for sale signs,” said Coughlin.
“The police are very overwhelmed. I don’t want to knock the police,” said Coughlin, “It’s the low-level scofflaw crime, the tension it builds, and the loss of quality of life in the community that escalates to these potentially violent situations.”
Coughlin says he is happy no one was hurt, but he’s concerned for himself and any visitors that come to his home.
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