Glass Salesman Arrested in Window-Shattering Spree

A longtime glass shop employee was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of shooting out many of the more than 350 shop windows shattered during the past five months in a $180,000 vandalism outbreak on Ventura Boulevard.

Los Angeles Police Lt. William Gaida said the investigation will continue because detectives believe others were involved in the shooting incidents. “While I believe the suspect is responsible for many of the shattered windows, I don’t believe that he is responsible for all of them,” Gaida said.

Richard Joseph Angona, 39, was arrested on suspicion of felony vandalism as he was leaving his Woodland Hills residence for work around 6:45 a.m. He was later released on $5,000 bail.

Gaida said police believe Angona shot out the windows with a gas-powered pellet gun on some mornings between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. on his way to work at North Hollywood Glass & Mirror Co.

Gaida said investigators suspect profit was the motive but would not elaborate. He said the glass shop’s owner, Wayne Christensen, is not a suspect in the vandalism.

Police confiscated a pellet gun from Angona’s residence that they believe was used in the shootings.

Christensen said he fired Angona, a 21-year-employee, after police told him of the arrest Wednesday.

Police said they believe the North Hollywood glass shop repaired some of the broken windows that had been shot out, but could not say how many or if Angona solicited the work. Christensen said Angona was a salesman for his company but did not receive commissions.

Gaida said 367 shop windows, worth about $183,000, were reported shot in the past five months. But he said there probably were more because many merchants who had been hit several times stopped reporting broken windows out of frustration or because they feared more reports would cause their insurance rates to rise or their policies to be canceled.

In November, after a rash of shootings, the chambers of commerce of Tarzana, Encino and Woodland Hills offered a $1,500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the vandals. At the time, police speculated that thrill-seeking youths were responsible.

Gaida said a two-month investigation that included assignment of a detective to work full time on the case resulted in the arrest. He said the most important lead came from a merchant who was able to provide police with a description of a vehicle seen leaving a shop immediately after a window was shot at.

Some Ventura Boulevard merchants victimized by the vandalism expressed relief that a suspect had been arrested.

“We’re delighted,” said Jim Brown, manager of the Valley Federal Bank branch in Tarzana. The bank’s windows have been broken eight times, and two broken a month ago were still boarded up Wednesday.

Karen Travis, manager of a woman’s boutique called Tanjee in the 18300 block of Ventura Boulevard, said her shop’s windows had been shot at about eight times in the past three years. One large pane of her shop’s front window, broken in November, remained boarded up Wednesday. Another pane had two pellet holes.

Travis said the shop’s insurance company will not pay to repair the windows anymore, and that at a cost of about $900 the shop’s owner has been slow to make the repairs.

The boarded-up window has also hurt business, Travis said.

“It has not allowed us to fully display the merchandise we want to showcase in the window,” she said. “That has hurt us because our windows are our advertising.”