WILLOWBROOK : Man Posing as Inspector Steals Safe From Home

A man posing as a county inspector distracted a 79-year-old Willowbrook resident Thursday, then made off with the man’s safe containing $50,000 and important family documents, authorities said.

Harry Patterson told investigators he was in his back yard on 123rd Street when the man walked up and said he was a county worker checking houses for lead contamination. Patterson let the man in, and the purported inspector told him to run water in the bathtub and bang on a pipe for about 10 minutes to loosen any lead, said Rich Erickson, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department While Patterson was in the bathroom, the man forced open the locked door to Patterson’s bedroom and stole the safe, Erickson said.