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The city expects its parking garages to suffer several broken arms a year.

Impatient drivers are typically to blame. “People get ahead of themselves thinking the gate is about to go up,” Wayne Mixdorf, Lincoln’s parking manager, said Tuesday. “And then they run into the gate.”

It’s caught others attempting to save a few dollars, trying to lift the gate just enough to slip their car through but ending up with a bigger bill: Each articulated arm costs $1,200 to replace.

But the city didn’t expect its cameras to capture a skinny young man in an even skinnier tie hanging from an arm at the Haymarket’s Green 2 Garage on June 2.

And kicking the gate. And twisting, hitting and pulling on it -- breaking connecting parts and motor arms and running up the damage to more than $3,200.

One of the costlier random acts of violence Mixdorf could recall.

“We’ve had greater damage done, but it’s done by people who are angry for some reason,” he said.