Local News in Brief : 3 Held in Shattering of 300 Car Windows

Los Angeles police Saturday announced the arrest of two men and a juvenile believed responsible for a two-month vandalism rampage that peaked last week when the windows of 200 cars in Granada Hills and Chatsworth were shot out with a high-powered pellet gun.

Corey Lamos and Patrick Huston, both 18-year-old Chatsworth residents, and a juvenile were arrested on suspicion of felony vandalism in Granada Hills shortly before midnight Friday, Sgt. Paul Haberman said.

Lamos and Huston were released Saturday on $5,000 bail each, Haberman said.

The juvenile, a 17-year-old Northridge resident, was released to his parents’ custody.

Haberman said the three drove through residential streets and indiscriminately shot at the windows of about 100 cars in Chatsworth and Granada Hills in January and February.

“They might get eight or 10 cars in one block,” he said. Some of the cars belonged to Devonshire Division officers, a coincidence that “definitely created a little pressure” to capture the vandals, he said.

From Wednesday through Friday, another 200 cars were vandalized, he said.

Police stationed several community volunteers as lookouts in Chatsworth and Granada Hills.

One volunteer saw the three shooting near Balboa Boulevard and Tulsa Street and called them, police said.

The three only shot at unoccupied cars parked in driveways or at the curb, Haberman said.

In one instance, a pellet went into a house, but police believe the vandals simply missed their target.

Haberman said the vandals apparently wanted to “just go out an have some fun.”