A small business from Drumheller is asking the residents of Cochrane and Rocky View County for assistance, with a hefty $5,000 reward to help identify those responsible for vandalizing one of their company vehicles.
In a Facebook post on May 6, Tyler Davidson of Gangster Enterprises LTD., a towing service company based in Drumheller, outlined that one of his vehicles was ransacked over the weekend of May 4 while parked in Cochrane.
Alongside stealing everything of value, Davidson said the vandals defecated and urinated inside the truck.
Despite experiencing vandalism in the past, this incident has left Davidson and the company owner very mad and disheartened, especially with the slow work flow due to the weather.
“I’m 32 [years old] working with a 65-year-old gentleman out here, and all we want to do is work and pay our bills,” Davidson said. “They defecated human feces in the truck and they peed everywhere. They stole everything they could, and if it wasn’t a rainy week, they would’ve burned half of this town down.”
Everything from paperwork, logbooks, inspection reports, and other important documentation was lost or destroyed. With those papers gone, he said it places their company in a difficult situation in the event they get audited.
“We need to prove that our guys are doing our jobs, and I spent about two hours picking up burnt pieces of our paperwork and everything out of the neighbouring field where our equipment was parked,” he said.
Davidson added that the keys to the truck were also stolen. Since it is an older vehicle, most of its parts have been swapped out.
After contacting the manufacturer, they learned that it was very difficult, if not impossible, to get a new key made.
“We finally found somebody, but they’re busy you know,” he said. “So now we’re waiting another 24 hours, [and] the trucks aren’t making any money. That’s $3,000 out of my boss’s pocket, and another day’s wages for two guys with families at home.”
Davidson said he contacted the RCMP, but now they can do is wait.
“They’re busy, but I made the Facebook post and other people reached out in the community here, and said that another site had been vandalized,” Davidson said. “So, I did a lot of stupid stuff as a kid, but I never through it was funny to take a crap or pee on anybody’s stuff. Like, that’s just disgusting, but I’m assuming it was just young boys.”
One thing that Davidson notes at the scene were dirt bike tracks around the area. Although he doesn’t know why anyone would do this, he said he hopes that they are eventually identified.
“And when they are, they’re going to suffer the full consequences of their decisions this weekend, because I’m upset,” Davidson said. “I was the one who personally cleaned it up, instead of the 65-year-old man who can hardly get in and out of the truck as it is.
“It was disgusting," he added. "It was the grossest thing I’ve ever done. I have a six-year-old boy who thinks the word poopy is hilarious, and when I explained what happened, he just said – 'why?'”
As a small business, Davidson said the company has worked very hard to build its fleet of trucks in order to keep workers employed.
“It really, really, screwed us and it cost us a lot of money,” he said.
With plenty of evidence, from fingerprints, DNA, and event dashcam footage, Davidson said everything will be handed to the local authorities. He advises those responsible to reach out to their company before they have the RCMP step in.
“If one of them ever do get fingerprinted, they’re going to have to deal with this,” he said. “So, it would be best to call my boss, and try to deal with him before the police get involved. But like I said, I don’t have high hopes for that.”
Davidson said the company is offering $5,000 to anyone who can find the keys to the truck, or has any legitimate information on the perpetrators behind this incident. For now, getting those keys remain a top priority.
“We just want them back,” he said. “If not, we got to go through the police.”
Overall, Davidson said this is the last thing he would have ever expected to take place in a community like Cochrane.
“We are very grateful for the work we have here in Cochrane,” Davidson said. “It keeps our guys going, and this is the first negative experience we’ve ever had.”
