OXNARD : Navy Diver Held After Rooftop Disturbance

A Navy diver was taken into custody Wednesday morning after he climbed onto a garage roof in an upscale Oxnard neighborhood and began hurling clay tiles at passing cars, authorities said.

Residents of a condo complex in the Mandalay Bay area called police to report a disturbance about 8:15 a.m. When officers arrived, they found Glen Alan Vienneau, 32, standing atop a single-story garage, cracking ceramic tiles and lobbing the pieces at cars on Harbor Boulevard and at homes inside the complex, said David Keith, an Oxnard police spokesman.

“He was babbling and cussing,” said Oxnard Firefighter Jim Guth, whose engine company was summoned to place a ladder against the garage. “He never gave us any reason why he was up there. He was just yelling at the cops.”

Guth said Vienneau, clad in a pair of shorts, was holding a tape recorder and at times pulled cassettes from his shorts. “He would holler that his batteries were dead,” Guth said.

Vienneau was apprehended when an officer jumped onto the roof and sprayed him with cayenne-based pepper spray. Vienneau tried to flee, but was caught by waiting officers and turned over to military police. He was later taken to the medical hospital at Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego.

In addition to his run-in with police Wednesday morning, Vienneau is facing a criminal trial in Las Vegas next month for allegedly beating and trying to rape a 21-year-old woman after forcing his way into her room at the Flamingo Hilton, officials said. He was absent without leave at the time from his Port Hueneme base. A Nevada judge allowed him to return to Port Hueneme pending the start of that trial.

Prior to the residents’ call Wednesday to Oxnard police, Vienneau called the Sheriff’s Department to his home on Sunset Lane about 7 a.m. to report vandalism. But when deputies arrived, they found no evidence of a crime.

Vienneau is a first-class petty officer assigned to the underwater construction team at the U.S. Naval Construction Battalion in Port Hueneme, a unit that travels around the world doing underwater repairs.

Vienneau has been in the Navy about 12 years and on the dive team for a year and a half, said Lt. Marc Myrum, the second-ranking commander of the dive team.