Leigh13, you are aces.

dear concerned citizen,
the 'car scratcher' has been around for a long time, at least ever since I moved here, which was about 13 years ago. he is harmless, in fact, he can be very nice, you can talk to him, he is not a monster. I highly doubt that he scratches cars, since I have never seen him doing it. Smashing bottles on Christopher Columbus Drive, yes, reading the paper, yes, but nothing violent of any sort.
people with mental illness don't know where to go, because this country doesn't provide help. starting a 'homeless hunt' and locking them away is extremely inhumane and reminds me of germany between 1933 and 1945. I would suggest, if you can't adapt to the Urban life, why not move back to the suburb?

Watch out for this guy. A couple of years ago I made very brief eye contact with him while walking down Newark Ave...he proceeded to spit on me and scream a string of expletives at me. It was gross, and I was really upset by it. Now I always cross the street when I see him coming my way.

If he has a mental illness and is a danger to himself or others, please call the cops. He can be committed involuntary into a psychiatric unit.

i have seen him pick up phone receivers on phone booths and spit on them - also seen the banging thing on phone booths as well. got to be carefull with schizo's though - remember that light rail incident over at LSP where a schizo stabbed and killed someone waiting for the train. i used to think he was harmless until that incident occurred. you can't be too careful.

Got a photo of this guy...

Be on the lookout!

What a dirty little b-stard..why don't the police arrest him. Thank the dickens that he's over at VVP and not HP. I would give him a swift kick in the ass, what are you people waiting for.

Thanks to Ripple and Shadow for the info. It's good to put a name to the face; I've seen him around the neighborhood for as long as I've been here (over 3 years).

He's scratched my car before (he apparently hates older Saabs), but this time he really destroyed the paint job and scored the metal. I hope JCPD can reach him before he does more damage. I can't a file a report until this evening.

He was clearly looking up and down the street to see if anyone was looking before he did it. He knows what he's doing is not kosher, but if he's schizophrenic there's not a lot to be done.

A/K/A the "Gorton's Fisherman". He scratched my car recently and have seen him by other cars banging away. Last week around midnite was by the steps of the "Parkview" York & Barrow banging the steps with a bag. In the past he would walk up to the phone booth on the park (gone now), pick up the receiver and bang the hell out of it. You can't confront someone like him and the damage he does may be negligible to some but cumulatively its a lot of bucks. It might be prudent to alert the P.D. since they know of him and they could advise him to knock it off.

He did the scratch thing on my fence last year....

If he's an aging white guy with a gray beard and a rain hat, that's the neighborhood fixture "Crazy Tony". A friend of mine managed to carry on a conversation with him once, and apparently he's a schizophrenic who had a family, but he refuses to take his meds and so this is the life he lives. He's usually pretty benign; this is the first I've heard of him vandalizing anything.

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I saw him the other day scratching the side of a building on the corner of Jersey and Bright. I have a feeling it might be some type of anxiety relief or something, since he just does it and then walks on.

Just giving a heads up to the neighborhood. If you find large lateral scratches in your car hood/fender you can thank the presumably homeless dude who wears a trench coat and pilots a fold-up cart around the neighborhood.

Caught him on Jersey Ave near the park this morning putting some huge gouges in my car. I yelled at him, then after he shuffled away realized he wasn't brushing the car, he was scratching it with a key or broken glass or a knife. He was gone before I could get a photo, but I'm sure other have seen him.

It wasn't the first time. The car has scratches on the other side. Anyone else get tagged by this dirtbag?