Shooting Spree Damages Businesses, Cars : Antelope Valley: Houses are also damaged by BB guns fired from a moving vehicle. Targeted were Palmdale, Lancaster, Quartz Hill.

Drive-by vandals went on an overnight window-smashing spree in the Antelope Valley, damaging about 100 businesses, vehicles and houses in Palmdale, Lancaster and Quartz Hill, sheriff’s deputies said Monday.

Calls from people whose windows had been shattered, apparently by one or more BB guns fired from a moving vehicle, began at 9 p.m. Sunday and continued well into the next day, deputies said.

“We’re still interviewing victims,” Sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Denham said Monday afternoon. “In fact, we’re still getting calls.”

Although no injuries were reported, local business owners said it will cost them hundreds or thousands of dollars to replace the windows, an expense that often is not covered by insurance.

“This is a serious crime,” Denham said. “The amount of damage that has occurred throughout the Antelope Valley is enough to constitute a felony.”

Deputies made no immediate arrests. “We’re trying to find some witnesses,” Denham said. “We’ve had things like this happen before. Usually, it turns out to be juveniles on a random rampage of vandalism.”

The damage was familiar to Julie Burroughs, manager of a Round Table Pizza shop on Palmdale Boulevard. The previous night, vandals had destroyed a window facing the street.

“This is our fifth time this year,” she said. “They just drive by and shoot the windows out. I have some regulars who avoid the windows now and sit on the other side.”

Burroughs suspects it was done by bored teen-agers. “It’s like they can’t find anything else to do in this town except blow out windows,” she said.

Mike Djeredjian is general manager of a Modern Video store on Palmdale Boulevard that was open for business Sunday night when one of the windows was hit. There were no customers inside at the time.

“It was like all of a sudden, you heard a big boom,” he said. “I looked up, and the glass was shattered.”

Like Burroughs, Djeredjian had the window boarded up Monday, waiting for a replacement pane. “I look at it this way--somebody was just having fun. (But) somebody could be hurt in the process,” he said.

Vandals inflicted some of the most severe damage at World of Sofas, a Sierra Highway furniture store where 11 windows and two glass doors were cracked or shattered overnight. Owner Harris Rome said his insurance would cover only part of the estimated $3,000 loss.

“It’s terribly disheartening,” Rome said. “You have vandals who apparently did this all over town.”

On Monday, employees were still cleaning up glass fragments and checking the merchandise for damage.

In Lancaster, Anthony and Louise Foss, who bought a mattress store on Avenue I less than a month ago, were similarly pulling pieces of glass out of the mattresses with a vacuum on Monday.

Louise Foss was the first to notice a pellet hole and a spider-web formation of cracked glass on one of the front doors. “I was scared to unlock the door,” she said. “This one’s ready to fall apart.”

Anthony Foss, who said insurance will not cover the damage, hopes the vandals are found and arrested soon. “I would really like it if they were made to be financially responsible,” he said, “as well as receiving whatever criminal punishment is appropriate.”

He’ll get no argument from Dennis Gulbranson, owner of Lancaster Glass, who received his first emergency service call at 11:30 p.m. Sunday and worked through the night as the calls continued coming in.

“I don’t mind the business, but I’d still like to catch them,” Gulbranson said. “They should be made to pay for the damages--plus my time. I’m not getting up (at night) for free.”