Police Arrest Man Following Window-Smashing Spree on Figueroa Street

Los Angeles Police Department officers arrested a suspect Monday who allegedly threw rocks at a string of storefronts, smashing the glass windows in several of the businesses, including an AutoZone store and an insurance firm.

Northeast LAPD Sgt. Roberto Alaniz, a watch commander at the station, confirmed that the suspect had allegedly targeted several stores. The precise details of the incidents were still being worked out at the station, he said.

One of the businesses attacked was Reinas Insurance, located on 5331 N. Figueroa St. At around 7 a.m. Monday, the insurance firm's owner, Richard Calderon, got a call from an employee who was cleaning the store. Its front window, Calderon was told, had been smashed.

Shortly thereafter, said Calderon, a police officer from the Northeast station told him that the window had been wrecked by a man who was high on amphetamines and had  been walking south on Figueroa, throwing rocks at storefront windows at around 5 a.m. Before attacking Calderon's store, the suspect broke the window of a relatively new AutoZone store a couple of blocks north of Reinas Insurance, the police officer told the insurance agent.

Fortunately, none of the broken pieces of glass in Calderon's window went into the store because the window, explained Calderon, was double-paned, with a film of plastic in between that caught all the glass fragments.

Although the window will cost about $600 to replace, Calderon said he was "happy that it at least did the job" and didn't leave "even a scratch on the inside."

Calderon said he had the special, two-pane window installed after an incident several years ago in which someone completely smashed the single-pane window to steal some miniature cars he had placed on the window sill for decoration.

The window targeted Monday looked as if it had been hit by a bullet. Asked if passersby got that impression, Calderon, who also owns the building where his store is located, said without batting an eyelid that an actual bullet had indeed entered his store about a year ago:

Someone fired three shots at someone else right outside the store, Calderon said, and one of the bullets ricocheted off the pavement, whizzed into the store through the front door and lodged into an office desk. (Nobody was hurt.)