Councilman Helps Capture Intruder

Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, long known as a pro-police politician, carried his personal fight against crime to a new level Thursday, when he teamed up with a Sparkletts water deliveryman to help officers arrest an alleged intruder.

Wachs was having a cup of coffee just before 9 a.m. when he heard breaking glass and discovered a man trying to get into his Studio City home.

As Wachs dialed 911, the man made his way around the outside of Wachs’ home, breaking more windows in an effort to get inside.

“He kept yelling, ‘This is my house! This is my house!’ ” Wachs said at an afternoon news conference outside the LAPD’s North Hollywood station. “He was obsessed with getting inside the house.”

Fearful that the man would eventually gain entry, the councilman, clad in a bathrobe and slippers, ran outside the house waving a long kitchen knife.

That’s when he encountered Mohsen Lavizani, who was delivering a bottle of Sparkletts water to one of Wachs’ neighbors.

“At first I thought he was coming at me,” said Lavizani, who has been a Sparkletts employee for 16 years.

But when he realized that the councilman was in trouble, Lavizani said, “I yelled, ‘Get in the truck!’ ”

Then he and Wachs watched as a man, his arms covered in blood, sped away in a white station wagon. Lavizani didn’t give chase. Knowing that the fleeing man was headed toward a dead end, he put his big green water truck in gear and positioned it in the middle of the road to block the suspect’s inevitable return.

It almost worked.

The man managed to drive around the barricade of water.

Undaunted, Lavizani hit the gas.

“Mr. Wachs kept saying, ‘Get his license plate number,’ ” the Sparkletts man said. “I said, ‘Forget about the license plate number. We’re going to catch him.’ I felt like Rambo chasing this guy down in a Sparkletts truck.”

As they roared down Wrightwood Drive in hot pursuit of the station wagon, two LAPD squad cars were racing in their direction.

“I stuck my head out the window and yelled, ‘That’s the guy!’ ” Lavizani said. “And then this dummy makes another turn into a dead-end street.”

Minutes later, the 33-year-old suspect was taken into custody by three officers.

Police released few details about the suspect, whom Wachs characterized as “obviously spaced out on some kind of substance.”

LAPD Lt. Anthony Alba said the man will be charged with burglary.

Wachs commended the officers, as well as Lavizani, whom he called Moe.

“Too often . . . people are afraid to get involved,” Wachs said. “Well, Moe got involved.”

Asked by a TV reporter whether Wachs was a Sparkletts customer, Lavizani shot back: “He’s going to be.”

Wachs was noncommittal.

“As a councilman, I drink tap water and I tell my constituents to,” Wachs said. “But I’m awfully tempted for Sparkletts right now.”

Staff writers Jill Leovy and Solomon Moore contributed to this story.