CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SACRAMENTO : Ex-Marine Ordered to Clean Memorial

A former Marine convicted of vandalizing the California Vietnam Veterans Memorial was ordered to scrub it clean every weekend for one year. “If somebody asks you what you’re doing and why you’re doing that, tell them you did something bad to the memorial and you’re paying for it,” Municipal Judge R. G. Vonasek told Stanley Del La Cruz. A jury convicted the 33-year-old landscaper of misdemeanor vandalism in breaking a six-inch piece off a life-size M-16 bronze rifle on the monument in February, 1989. Del La Cruz contended that the barrel accidentally broke off when he grabbed it to pull himself to his feet from a kneeling position after praying for “the soldiers and their mothers.”