Vandals Tear Through School, Set Fires That Gut 3 Classrooms

Vandals rampaged through a Lancaster elementary school early Wednesday and set a fire that gutted three classrooms, closing the school for the day in what school officials called the worst such incident in memory.

Los Angeles County Fire Department officials estimated damage to Sierra Elementary School at $350,000, but school officials predicted the figure would be much higher.

Sheriff’s arson investigators probing the 3:26 a.m. incident said they found evidence but had no suspects as of late Wednesday. However, a private security guard who was nearby reported that he saw two older teen-agers running away from the area about 10 minutes before he saw the fire.

Stunned school workers and teachers spent the day cleaning and repairing seven vandalized classrooms that were not burned, and prepared to reopen the school today to its 800 students by using four spare classrooms.

It was the worst episode of vandalism that school officials could recall in the fast-growing district, but only the latest in a series at Sierra Elementary School that includes an arson in a book storage area last summer and the vandalism of five classrooms during the Christmas break.

School officials were groping for a motive for the rampage, saying that because of the magnitude of the damage, they did not think any of the school’s young students were involved. Principal Irv Wheeler said the vandals “had to be deranged, either that or strung out on drugs.”

The worst damage came in the block of four fourth-grade classrooms, where the fire was started using paper stuffed into a gas heater, fire officials said. Two classrooms were gutted, a third had moderate fire damage, and the fourth had only smoke damage. About 20 firefighters worked about 15 minutes to douse the flames.

In the six other classrooms, one three-unit building of first-grade rooms and another three-unit building of second-grade rooms, televisions and computers were smashed and glue was poured on the floor. The vandals also ransacked the teachers lounge.

Nothing was stolen, officials said.

School officials said the fire-gutted one-story building probably will have to be demolished and rebuilt using insurance money. Heater covers were pried off in other vandalized classrooms, raising suspicions the vandals intended to set fires in more than just the one building.

Sheriff’s deputies said the vandals apparently scaled the school’s fence and used either a hammer or fists to punch holes in classroom windows so they could open the doors. Deputies said they recovered a blood-stained hammer at the school and believe the vandals again scaled the fence to leave.

The classrooms did not have burglar alarms, nor did they have fire alarms, smoke detectors or fire sprinklers. County fire officials said state law requires schools to have some type of fire alarm. The 34-year-old school does have an alarm that can be triggered from its office. But the system itself would not detect a fire, something that is not required by law.

Sheriff’s Deputy Dan Watters, heading the arson investigation, said fingerprints believed to be the vandals’ were recovered from the classrooms and the fence. A blood type determination was made from stains left in several of the rooms, where at least one of the vandals cut his hand on shattered glass.

Watters said Antelope Valley-area hospitals were asked to keep watch requests for treatment for someone with a hand injury.

Sheriff’s deputies could not be reached for comment on the report by a guard at Lancaster Community Hospital, across the street from the school, that he had chased two white youths, one about 15 and the other about 17, off the hospital’s property just before the fire was seen.

Sherry Durham, business manager for Regional Patrol Services, the hospital’s security firm, said guard Arpad Kovacs described the younger youth as having dark, neatly trimmed hair and wearing a long black coat. He said the older youth had sandy blond hair and was wearing a baseball cap, Durham added, saying she had given deputies the information.