Vandalism

A 47-year-old transient is in custody for allegedly destroying three trees in the Matthew Shepard Human Rights Triangle, authorities said. Bruce Bartmann was arrested Wednesday by sheriff's deputies after he allegedly vandalized trees in the tribute garden last month, said Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore. He said investigators are not sure why Bartmann chose to vandalize the trees, which are a tribute to local gay leaders. The vandalism is not considered a hate crime.

SEATTLE — Downtown Seattle erupted in chaos Tuesday as black-clad May Day demonstrators marauded through the shopping district, smashing plate glass windows at banks and retail outlets, spray-painting cars and slashing tires. At least eight people had been arrested by early evening. May Day arrests also were reported in Portland, Ore., and New York. Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn signed an emergency order authorizing police to confiscate sticks, tire irons, hammers and other implements that might be used for continued destruction.

Even at a suburban school like Northridge, which has a reputation as a safe campus, the threat of violence casts a shadow over the school day. It isn't just the five campus aides stalking the halls with walkie-talkies flapping at their belts, or the random metal detector searches. You can see the way violence has changed behavior in the way the gym teachers flinch, fearing a bullet, when they hear a car backfire out on Schoenborn Street.

Hate speech is a form of vandalism. It defaces the environment, and like a broken window, if left untended, signals to other hoodlums that the coast is clear to do more damage. But unlike the proverbial broken window, which urban police departments and criminologists urge us to repair to maintain the aura of social order, nobody seems to be in much of a hurry to nip hate speech in the bud. That's because since the ill-fated attempt by several universities to regulate hate speech in the 1980s and '90s, any discussion of reining in racist taunts inevitably degrades into charges of political correctness and ends abruptly with the invocation of the 1st Amendment.

For as long as many can remember, the section of the Los Angeles River that runs east of downtown has been an open-air gallery for taggers. No more. Members of the self-described "Metro Transit Assassins" used the river's sloping banks for massive tags of their acronym that stretched for blocks and could be seen from passing aircraft. "Buket," who gained notoriety for tagging the Hollywood Freeway overpass, put his black-bordered, mint-green moniker here at its biggest and boldest.

A detective who has been testifying in the Dalton Avenue police vandalism case for three days has refused to answer any more questions because he is now under investigation for possible perjury. By exercising his 5th Amendment right not to incriminate himself, Detective Robert Clark opens himself up to possible discipline and firing by Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, according to the city attorney's office.

I'm sick of viruses. I'm even sicker of the weasels who program them. Starting at midnight tonight, the so-called Columbus Day virus (also known as the Datacrime virus) will allegedly spring to life to destroy all the hard disk data on thousands of IBM-compatible personal computers. Picture someone sneaking into your office and torching every item in your files--letters, reports, memos. Everything. Multiply that by thousands and you have computerdom's equivalent to Hurricane Hugo.

Now that the initial shock and horror of the discovery of the defacement and vandalism of Tifereth Israel Synagogue has been absorbed, we would like to say "thank you" on behalf of both the congregation and the Anti-Defamation League. While it is hard to comprehend how any good can be produced from such a despicable act, we were warmed, then overwhelmed at the outpouring of support and offers of assistance from every corner of our community. We particularly wish to thank the ministers of those churches that, with Tifereth Israel, form the Navajo Interfaith Assn.

Jewish community leaders said Wednesday that they are satisfied with the sentencing of two San Diego teen-agers for vandalizing a San Carlos synagogue in what has been described as the worst crime against the local Jewish community in a decade.

Two San Fernando Valley residents were arrested in a string of thefts and vandalism of commercial businesses, police said Friday. David Janson, 39, of Granada Hills, and Vickie Ross, 31, of Reseda, were arrested in connection with smashed front windows and stolen cash registers at eight businesses in Simi Valley, police there said.

The flood channel near Interstate 10 has been scarred by hundreds of graffiti tags and, like a wound that never heals, treated countless times with drab paint. Beneath the layers of beige and gray are jagged markings that dominate San Bernardino Police Sgt. Dwight Waldo's world. He has tracked them for two decades - chasing taggers through back alleys, recovering hundreds of weapons from their hangouts and memorizing, then forgetting, more than 5,000 tags. What many in law enforcement once viewed as petty vandalism, mostly the work of teens with spray cans, early on became something more to Waldo.

No money, no park Re "A park left vulnerable," Feb. 25 The one thing that will save Mitchell Caverns (and other shuttered state parks) is the one thing California probably will not do: The state should sell the park to someone who will take care of the place. Owners take far better care of their property. Sure, any buyers would want to make the park profitable, but what's wrong with that? With a little investment and promotion, Mitchell Caverns and other parks like it could become tourist attractions to an extent they never have been previously.

Reporting from Providence Mountains State Recreation Area, Calif. -- California parks officials closed a gem of the state park system last spring, sadly shuttering Mitchell Caverns, a natural wonder that for eight decades had drawn visitors to this remote spot in the Mojave Desert. Workers hauled away the precious Native American artifacts and historical documents and locked the gates, assuming the area would sit undisturbed until the state could afford to reopen it. But several times in the last four months, vandals traveled 16 desolate miles north from Interstate 40 to plunder and damage the park's isolated structures.

Officials surveyed damage Sunday from a volatile Occupy protest that resulted in hundreds of arrests the day before and left the historic City Hall vandalized after demonstrators broke into the building, smashed display cases, cut electrical wires and burned an American flag. Police placed the number of arrests at about 400 from Saturday's daylong protest — the most contentious since authorities dismantled the Occupy Oakland encampment late last year. Mayor Jean Quan condemned the local movement's tactics as "a constant provocation of the police with a lot of violence toward them" and said the demonstrations were draining scarce resources from an already strapped city.

This week, a forgotten work of political art is being reconstructed on Sunset Boulevard. But it is unlikely that the new Tower of Protest, going up as part of the months-long, Southern California-wide Pacific Standard Time art initiative, will spark the kind of reaction it did during its first appearance in 1966. The skirmishes back then began before the tower even existed. One day in January 1966, a group of artists announced their intention on a billboard-sized sign on Sunset near La Cienega Boulevard.

A Claremont church's nativity display that showed gay couples holding hands was vandalized in an incident discovered Christmas Day that authorities are investigating as a hate crime. Claremont United Methodist Church has a Christmas tradition of unusual nativity scene installations that are intended to carry a social or political message. Despite some of the controversial topics, the installations had never been defaced, according to church officials and John Zachary, the artist who created them.

I feel it vital to express outrage--for lack of a better word--for the glorification of vandalism that appeared in the Orange County Focus section ("UCI Gets Graffiti, but by Design," Oct. 26). The Times spoke approvingly of (graffiti artist) Raul Gamboa and even displayed a picture of a smug Gamboa holding a spray can toward the camera. The "work" of people such as Gamboa costs this country millions of dollars a year to repair, besides making certain neighborhoods an affront to civilized society.

In a gruesome act, vandals broke into eight crypts at the abandoned Verdugo Hills Cemetery and exhumed the corpses, propping up one against the crypt and shoving a cigarette in its mouth, Los Angeles police said. A volunteer caretaker, who last visited the cemetery in October, discovered the macabre scene Tuesday afternoon. "It's possible that this was a Halloween prank," LAPD Det. Jim Vojtecky said.

Ronald Reagan may have said that "government is the problem," but for a recently damaged statue of his likeness in Bonita Canyon Sports Park, it appears to be part of the solution. Newport Beach officials plan to repair the bronze statue and use public funds to provide for its ongoing security. Because the artwork was donated to the city, administrators are responsible for its maintenance, city spokeswoman Tara Finnigan said. Since someone pulled the life-size statue partially off its base earlier this month, some in the community have called for the donors or certain City Council members to pay for its repairs and to have the artwork moved to private property.

Jewish extremists are suspected of torching a mosque in a northern Israeli town Monday, the latest in a string of anti-Arab attacks that have enraged Palestinians and alarmed Israeli security officials. After setting the fire in the early-morning hours, vandals spray-painted the words "revenge" and "price tag" on the walls of the mosque in the Bedouin village of Tuba-Zangaria. Similar messages have been left in the West Bank, where attackers have burned mosques, cars belonging to Palestinians and olive trees.