Butcher Who Vowed to 'Butcher' Tire Slasher Tricked Neighbors into Paying for His Wedding, Also Was the One Secretly Slashing Their Tires
Dave Toledo's got some big brass balls.
He was arrested Wednesday, after police determined he was responsible for dozens of tire slashings that have plagued the same Philadelphia neighborhood over the past few months.
Toledo, a butcher, was one of the most vocal opponents of his neighborhood's mysterious serial tire-slashing vandal.
He courted press, throwing out zany puns to express his outrage:
"I feel like butchering the one who is doing this," Toledo said shortly after reporting to police that all four tires on his Jeep Cherokee had been slashed, just one week after the same thing had happened to his wife's car.
He zealously organized and led a neighborhood watch group designed to help catch (or, more accurately, not catch) the culprit.
He posed for newspaper photographs, pensively biting his lip as he reflected on the barbarity of man's inhumanity to man.
He slashed at least 55 tires.
The most compelling detail of Toledo's story, though, is unrelated to his tire-butcherings; he also tricked neighbors into paying for his wedding, shortly after moving to the area, by hitting them up for "block party" donations:
After the Toledos moved in, the couple went around to everyone's house, asking neighbors to sign off on a block party, which would close the street to traffic, and for contributions for a DJ, according to residents. But instead of a neighborhood affair with games and activities for kids, the couple had a wedding.
What? Did Yvonne Toledo come out in a dress and get married in the middle of the street?
"She came out in a dress and got married in the middle of the street," said Jill Pagan, 32.
Jill had three tires slashed on her Honda Civic.
Toledo's neighbors have taken the revelation that the slasher was one of their own with characteristic Philadelphia cheer:
"He better stay in jail because if he comes out there's not going to be much left of him."
"He better get his car off the street because people are going to get stab-happy real quick."
"If I wouldn't get in trouble, I'd like to break his hands."
How quickly they forget the lovely time they had at that wedding.
