L.A. police say there's an epidemic of car burglaries targeting tourists' rental cars — carried out largely by gang members from the Bay Area.
Shannon FitzPatrick was excited to show her husband and two children her grandfather’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame when the family traveled to Los Angeles in July for a wedding.
FitzPatrick and her husband, a Volusia County sheriff’s deputy, are among hundreds of tourists in the last year caught up in a new crime wave of smash-and-grab car burglaries at some of the city’s top attractions. The victims describe ruined vacations that have tainted their perception of Los Angeles.
As they waited for police, a shop owner told Heseltine that her surveillance camera recorded the theft. The video showed a woman break the vehicle’s window and grab the bag. A man drove the getaway car. In August, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies arrested Adrian Benton Jr., 20, the driver of the getaway car, LAPD Det. Brent Hopkins said. Benton, from Richmond, pleaded guilty to three counts of burglary from motor vehicles, Hopkins said. The woman who grabbed Heseltine’s backpack has yet to be arrested, he said.
The task forces are working to “detect, deter and dismantle organized vehicle burglary rings that operate up and down the state” and the West Coast, Domby said.Deputies in Los Angeles County have increased patrols in tourist spots and are conducting undercover operations to nab suspects, said Lt. William Moulder of the Sheriff’s Department’s West Hollywood station.
at a shopping center in Sherman Oaks. The trio, police said, were committing thefts in Hollywood and the Mid-Wilshire area.
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