Vandal Attacks Shatter 70 Windows in Antelope Valley

Windows of 70 businesses, homes and parked cars were shot out with air guns in a series of vandal attacks in the Antelope Valley, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said Friday.

“They hit the whole area,” Deputy Tania Bower said. “It could have been a group of kids or just a couple. No one said they saw them.”

The windows were hit with BB or pellet guns between 11 p.m. Wednesday and 5 a.m. Thursday, Bower said.

Authorities initially believed the shooting spree involved 40 windows but investigators increased that tally to 70 on Friday, after more victims came forward.

The vandalism occurred throughout the Antelope Valley, but most of the windows were smashed on the west side of Lancaster and in the Quartz Hill area.

Though the Antelope Valley shootings appeared to have targeted mostly parked cars, the vandalism is the latest in a series of attacks involving auto windshields and windows. The California Highway Patrol has reported that windows of more than 250 vehicles have been shattered since Sept. 11, when a rash of strange attacks began on Southern California freeways.

But since the arrest last week of two men in connection with some of the attacks, the CHP has reported a drop in the number of shootings.

Los Angeles police, however, arrested two teenagers Thursday night for allegedly using a BB gun to shoot out the window of a school bus in Sun Valley.

Investigators in the Antelope Valley are uncertain whether the high desert shootings are so-called copycats. Deputies ask that anyone with information on these crimes contact the sheriff’s station at (805) 948-8466.