Local News in Brief : Cable Scheme Off the Air

Four cable television company employees are getting an extra week’s pay for putting a couple of cable installers out of work.

The installers, say police, were imposters, calling on homes in the Eagle Rock area where they collected fees of $50 to $65 for bringing in channel selector boxes, climbing up nearby power poles and going through other routines.

Unfortunately, according to detectives, they never connected anything.

When a suspicious subscriber telephoned Century Southwest Cable Television Inc. to report the pair this week, a quartet of legitimate employees headed for the neighborhood in separate cars, communicating by radio.

They grabbed one of the suspects at the door of a home in the 5200 block of Stratford Road, then caught the other after a chase.

The allegedly phony installers, who were booked by police on suspicion of burglary, were identified as Mark Takamine, 32, and his brother, Dennis, 34.