‘Absolute senseless act’: Dog rescue charity vans vandalized in St. Vital; suspects caught on dashcam

A Winnipeg not-for-profit dog rescue is reeling after they say both their vans were vandalized early Sunday morning when individuals smashed their windows.

The team at Manitoba Underdogs Rescue Inc. says the driver’s side windows on their cargo and cruiser vans were smashed around 2:30 a.m. in the St. Vital area.

In dashcam footage shared by the charity on social media, individuals can be seen walking and biking past the two parked vans.

One individual appears to knock the driver’s side window of the first van using an item in his hand. As he walks past the second van, a crashing noise can be heard on the dashcam video.

“Around 1:30 a.m., three suspects walked by the vans,” the group said in their Facebook post describing the incident. “You can hear two suspects each try the door handle on the cruiser. The cruiser then recorded one suspect peering into the driver’s window of the cargo van.

“An hour later around 2:30am, they return, with one of suspects smashing the cargo van with some type of tool, and then he smashes the cruiser’s window. They immediately continue on their way and leave. They didn’t even attempt to get in after smashing the window, and there were no valuables in sight.

“We have no idea why they would choose to smash windows beyond having complete disregard and disrespect for others.”

WATCH: Dashcam footage of alleged vandalism of charity’s vans

Manitoba Underdogs Rescue say they filed a police report and intended to share the footage with police.

The not-for-profit, which is entirely run by volunteers, says the timing of the alleged vandalism could not be worse, as it happened during their busy “Beat the Heat” spay and neuter clinic.

“Our team was on the road yesterday for 12 hours, and were working until approximately 11:00pm bringing 15 dogs in for spay/neuter surgeries this morning (Sunday).

“Our team, after very little sleep , arrived at 7:00am to pick up the vehicles to drive the dogs to their surgery appointments, only to discover glass covering the ground and the windows smashed. Glass covered the interior driver’s side as well. It took 2.5 hours to clean up.”

Manitoba Underdogs Rescue say surgeries scheduled for Sunday had to be delayed, and the team was forced to come up with a temporary solution to repair the two vans.

“Not to mention the added expense now for a non-profit charitable organization, and the time we will be without our vehicles while they are being repaired. We are totally frustrated by this absolute senseless act!”