For the third time since the start of 2016, the same homeless man vandalized a central division police vehicle with a brick.
KCPD arrested 30-year-old Daniel Buls on Saturday after Buls reportedly smashed a rear tail light out of a squad car and then walked inside the station, told officers what he did and requested officers take him to jail.
“I’ve been on for nine years. This is the first time I’ve ever seen this happen,” said KCPD responding officer Michael Herschberger.
Herschberger says Buls had other options if he would have asked for help, including staying in the police station lobby, having police assist him in finding a shelter or putting him in contact with case and social workers if he was banned from local shelters.
“We gave him the option, we told him instead of breaking our tail lights, how about you just come in and say hey, I’m trespassing on police property now, I want to go to jail,” said Herscherger. “It’s going to save us time and money. You know, there are other ways to handle a situation like that other than damaging a police vehicle.”
Prior to Saturday’s arrest, Buls vandalized police vehicles at the same police station twice within 7 days.
Jan. 10
In the KCPD incident report, police say Buls threw a brick into a police car headlight directly in front of an officer after the officer asked him, “How are you doing?”
The officer said Buls then put his hands up and said, “I give up.” Buls also told the officer he was homeless and cold and wanted to go to jail because he didn’t like the shelters.
Jan. 17
Police arrested Buls after they said he smashed another tail light, this time a Ford Focus owned by the city.
On each night Buls was arrested, temperatures dipped into the low 20s.
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Brian Abel can be reached at brian.abel@kshb.com.
