SANTA ANA : Reward Offered for Information on Fire

After a late-night incident in which someone torched his mailbox, City Councilman Richards L. Norton is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the vandal’s arrest and conviction.

Norton said that sometime after he went to sleep at his home Sunday night, someone stuffed his brick mailbox with papers and set them on fire. He discovered the vandalism as he left for work Monday afternoon.

Although the mailbox was blackened, it was not damaged and no mail was inside at the time. Norton said he did not file a police report because “I don’t want to waste the police’s time or the Fire Department’s time for ashes on my front yard.”

On Wednesday, he said that the incident follows six months of sporadic threatening phone calls to his home. He could not say whether the incidents were related.

“If these are pranks, there’s more than two or three people involved. I really have no leads. That’s why I’m offering the $1,000 to find out who’s harassing us,” he said.

Norton said he announced the reward Monday at the council’s regular meeting, which is televised, to get “all the publicity I could. I want the bad guy’s friend to know that I’m offering $1,000.”