The bronze miner who stood for 80 years in a Mid-City park suffered the height of indignities.
He was ripped from his pedestal in the park two blocks from Beverly Hills, cut in half above the knees and trucked to a scrap yard on Alameda Street south of downtown. There he was thrown amid the lumpen metal masses -- common copper plumbing, old radiators, transmissions and beer kegs.
Fortunately, police found the miner before he was crushed in the bailer, sent to China and melted in a foundry forge. And they may have ended a peculiar crime spree as well.
Two men were arrested Thursday in connection with the theft and are suspected of stealing other bronze sculptures in the Mid-City area and Beverly Hills between Jan. 29 and Tuesday. Sebastian Espana, 22, and Jessie Hernandez, 23, are likely to face grand theft charges, said Det. Stephanie Lazarus of the Los Angeles Police Department's Art Theft Detail.
The thefts are part of a vexing trend: As the price of metals has soared worldwide, people have taken to stealing streetlight wiring, plumbing valves, catalytic converters and fire hydrants. But the pilfering of sculptures for a quick buck has brought the crime to a new level of audacity and waste.
As art, the 7-foot miner panning for gold, sculpted by Henry Lion in 1924 and 1925, was valued at $125,000. As 512 pounds of bronze, police said, it was sold to Central Metals Inc. on Alameda on Feb. 3 for a mere $900.
Supervisors at the facility were suspicious when the statue arrived and held it for an LAPD detective, who routinely scopes the metal yards for stolen items.
"When something like this comes in, we keep it to the side," said Louis Castro, a manager at the six-acre facility. They also take names. Scrap yards, by law, must record the identifications of anyone dropping off metal.
Police placed a hold on the statue and launched an investigation, setting up surveillance on the two suspects, Lazarus said.
The pair allegedly returned this week with other works of art: modern sculpture resembling two people entwined, stolen from a business on Wilshire Boulevard, and two bronze giraffes and a depiction of children on a swing from a home in Beverly Hills.
The men were arrested about 10:30 p.m. Thursday on suspicion of grand theft. Detectives are trying to locate a bronze bust and another sculpture the two men are suspected of stealing.
