Los Alamitos Police Await Thief’s Return

They take their crime seriously here.

So seriously, in fact, that for six straight nights, undercover police officers--some wearing night-vision goggles--have hit the streets in unmarked cars and on bikes to catch a cat burglar who has stolen less than $100 in cash from two homes in the South Highlands neighborhood.

In most cities, adding four more officers to a special detail might be no big deal. But in tiny Los Alamitos, it amounts to a doubling of the normal patrol.

“Four police officers usually patrol the entire 3-square-mile city, but we have assigned that many to just this one small area,” Los Alamitos Police Capt. Arl Farris said. “We’ve only had two of these burglaries, but we are taking them very seriously because of the trauma that could happen to someone who finds a person in their home.”

Police are getting help from the National Guard, whose property backs up to the quiet middle-class neighborhood of one- and two-story homes. Officers are using night-vision goggles--tools usually used for nocturnal combat--borrowed from the state Department of Justice.

The National Guard is assisting police by patrolling its property.

The intruder, who has not confronted the victims, struck a home at 2:45 a.m. on Sept. 9 in the 11800 block of Paseo Bonita. He entered the master bedroom where a couple slept as a television blared in the background. The burglar fled as soon as the husband began calling out his 17-year-old son’s name, whom he mistakenly thought was in the room.

On Oct. 3, the prowler entered a home in the 3600 block of Kempton Drive about 3 a.m., slipped past a resident who was sleeping on the sofa in the family room and walked into the master bedroom. He ran away when a woman woke up and screamed.

The burglar entered both homes through unlocked sliding glass doors.

“This area is so safe that this is really surprising,” said Martha Hough, who has lived on Paseo Bonita for 25 years. “We’ve never had a problem except when the kids were growing up and they’d grab things out of other people’s garages.”

The intense surveillance has not exactly had its intended results. Some calls to the Police Department this week were from residents reporting suspicious-looking cars parked on their streets, which turned out to be used by the undercover officers.

Early Tuesday, Officer Mark Van Holt and Det. Richard Deleon sat behind the black-tinted windows of unmarked police cars watching for movement.

They wore radio headsets that enabled them to communicate with Sgt. Todd Mattern, who cruised around the neighborhood on a new police bike and Officer Sean Connolly, who patrolled the street on foot.

The four-man cat burglar detail follows every car, pedestrian or cyclist to make sure they are, in fact, residents of the neighborhood, satisfied only when they watch a key inserted in a front door. So far, the only infractions they’ve witnessed are the teens who covered two homes with toilet paper.

Police said they are taking such extreme measures to catch the burglar because they fear someone could be hurt if a confrontation occurs between the prowler and a resident. And they question whether the residents or the cat burglar is in more danger.

“I’m fearful someone is going to shoot this guy,” Farris said. “He could run into a gun nut or even worse, someone who doesn’t know much about guns.”