Update at 1:30 p.m. Monday to include more details from police records.

Dallas police say a man with a sledgehammer damaged 12 squad cars early Sunday at the department's Central Division station on South Hall Street in Deep Ellum.

Police said 58-year-old Gregory Simpson entered the police station parking lot about 5:20 a.m. through a gate at the Dallas City Marshal's office and slung a hammer on the first Dallas police car he came across, police said.

He then proceeded to damage the windshields of three more Dallas police cars and eight Dallas marshal cars, causing about $4,900 in damage, police wrote in his arrest warrant affidavit.

A witness ran to the marshals office to tell them what was going on outside.

Officers confronted the suspect and told him to drop the hammer. He was arrested on a charge of criminal mischief. Dallas Fire-Rescue was also called to the lot to treat Simpson, though police didn't specify what the treatment was for.

The motive was unknown.

Simpson told a detective who tried to talk to him that he wanted a lawyer. He remained in the Dallas County jail on Monday.

Photos shared by the Dallas Police Association on Twitter showed squad cars with broken windshields and windows. The association's president couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

"These parking lots need to be secure !!!!!" the association tweeted.

Around 5am this morning a suspect entered our central substation parking lot that’s STILL unsecured smashing 12 cars in total! What’s it going to take folks, Officer getting killed ? These parking lots need to be secure !!!!! pic.twitter.com/vWUGLFUlzV — Dallas Police Assoc FOP #716 (@DPA_PoliceAssoc) February 4, 2018

Police increased security at the stations after a man in an armored vehicle rained bullets on the Dallas police headquarters in 2015 and after a gunman fatally ambushed five officers, injuring several other people, a year later.

The police association estimated on Sunday that the added security has likely cost the city several millions of dollars.

If anybody is curious about how much we’ve spent on station security, the tally is somewhere around $13,000,000 now. How much were the fences supposed to be again?! — Dallas Police Assoc FOP #716 (@DPA_PoliceAssoc) February 4, 2018

It has been 2 years, 7 months, and 22 days since station security started in the aftermath of the Jack Evans Police Headquarters attack (Dallas Police Department). — Dallas Police Assoc FOP #716 (@DPA_PoliceAssoc) February 4, 2018