Cable Saboteurs Strike Again; Reward Increased

Officials of a Los Angeles cable company, victimized by sabotage that blacked out the last half of the Lakers-Pistons NBA finals in 20,000 homes, said Wednesday that “cable terrorists” were to blame for the incident and several others this year.

Evidence gathered after Tuesday night’s blackout suggested that saboteurs, armed with spiked boots and cable clippers, climbed a telephone pole on Mt. Washington and snipped a vital cable link to Eagle Rock, Glassell Park, Highland Park and Lincoln Heights, said Bill Rosendahl, a spokesman for Century Cable.

“The incident that occurred last night was a clean cut,” said Louise Anlyan Harris, general manager of Century’s Eagle Rock system. “The (telephone) pole has fresh gaff marks, meaning someone had climbing gear; either someone who has done work in the cable or telephone industry, or has access to this kind of gear.”

Service was restored at 8:45 p.m. Tuesday, five minutes after the end of the game.

“We’re outraged by what took place,” Rosendahl said at a press conference, “and we are upping the reward today to $100,000 to anyone who can help us nail the people who are doing this kind of terrorism.”

Since 1987, saboteurs have used machetes, cable cutters and sledgehammers to slash Century Cable’s lines or destroy communications equipment, blacking out viewing for events ranging from the Super Bowl to the Academy Awards. Two similar incidents took place this year before the blackout of the basketball finals.

Rosendahl said Tuesday’s blackout, which was reported to Mayor Tom Bradley’s office, the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI, “requires someone with enough sophistication to know which cables to cut and how to do it.”

“We also make this $100,000 available to the LAPD,” Rosendahl said. “If they capture this person completely on their own without any citizen involvement, we’ll donate $100,000 to their widows’ and orphans’ fund.”

Los Angeles Police Lt. Tom Chiarenza, who is investigating the case as a misdemeanor, said he was offended by the offer.

“I don’t think the Police Department or the police chief would accept the money--we’re not bounty hunters,” Chiarenza said. “We’ll do the best we can. But we’re not going to work harder just because someone offers a reward. That’s ridiculous.”

In any case, Rosendahl said that the cost to the company of posting the $100,000 reward, which had originally been set at $25,000, “certainly could be passed on” to the company’s 150,000 customers throughout Los Angeles.

In the past, Century officials have blamed some incidents on bitter contract negotiations with a Communication Workers of America local in Los Angeles. But Rosendahl, who described the culprit as “someone with a sick mind,” does not believe labor disputes were involved in the latest attack because “we have a contract in place.”

Game Drowned Out

This year’s problems with saboteurs began Jan. 22, when pirate broadcasters drowned out the audio portion of the first half of the San Francisco 49ers-Cincinnati Bengals Super Bowl game with anti-Semitic remarks. The remarks were beamed to 76,000 cable subscribers in Sherman Oaks, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Brentwood and Marina del Rey.

On Memorial Day Weekend, someone snipped a cable linked to 12,000 customers in the West Hollywood area.

Then, on Tuesday night, saboteurs struck again. Harris said she would not rule out the possibility of an “inside job.”

Century’s system was built by Howard Hughes in the early 1950s to provide a television signal for his aircraft industry employees living on the Westside of Los Angeles. The system changed hands twice before it was bought by Group W in 1982. In 1987, it was taken over by Century Communications Corp. of New Canaan, Conn., which owns Century Cable.

Last year, Century launched a five-year, $50-million effort to rebuild the system, which will include replacing some of its aging coaxial cables with less vulnerable fiber optics, Rosendahl said.