Nearly 100 tires left on church property as vandals strike again

SHORELINE, Wash. — They’re committed to saving souls at Saint Barnabas Anglican Church.

But now the Shoreline congregation is being called to remove nearly a hundred tires someone decided to dump on their property.

Vandals have repeatedly targeted this church.

This is so frustrating for this congregation and very expensive. This is the latest insult, scores of tires that someone just left.

“I discovered it last Wednesday,” said Father Harley Crain.

That is the first he knew that the grounds of Saint Barnabas Anglican Church had once again been used as a dump.

“It’s not a church project,” he said, laughing. “It’s probably about 94 tires. And Thornton Creek runs just on the west side of this fence. Looks like a bunch of mismatched tires.”

Still Father Harley, as he likes to be called, hasn’t lost his sense of humor.

“I thought about offering visitors a few sets of unmatched tires,” he said, smiling.

But he knows it’s no laughing matter.

“We’ve learned that, you know, they’re toxic,” said Father Harley. “That you have to have a permit to move more than two, two or four. It’s a very small number. So, it’s not something we can do.”

And it’s a big expense for his 50-member congregation.

“We didn’t budget for a mountain of tires this year,” he said, wryly.

And what a year it’s been. Vandals have broken into every shed on the property, left unsightly graffiti on a side of the church. They have broken the door jamb, even threw a rock into a stained-glass window.

The church installed surveillance cameras, then thieves stole half of them.

And that’s not all.

“We’ve had a warming fire underneath the gas line,” he said. “And they used the recycling material to build the fire.”

Now Father Harley says they are thinking of hiring security.

“Each of these incidents, they might seem incidental alone,” he said. “But for a small parish, it’s costly.”

And then there are the two trailers that were left here, too.

So, they need help finding the culprits.

Anyone who knows who is doing this is asked to call 911.

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