With baseball bats and crowbars, vandals smashed up a car in the 4500 block of Lomina Avenue in Lakewood.
A neighbor told KTLA the homeowner was watching from the window as six brazen burglars tried to steal her car’s catalytic converter. Then as the homeowner screamed at them to stop, they threatened her.
Lakewood resident Brian Cuaron said the incident made him “very, very angry.”
“They were going to kill that woman. It was that simple. You saw the guy with the bat above his head and he was right by her door. He was going to whack her on top of the head,” Cuaron said.
It’s not the first time the neighborhood has been victim to crime. Neighbors tell KTLA that it’s out of control in the area, including a flash mob that swarmed a Home Depot in November and stole merchandise.
“It’s all over, all over the place. We had the smash and grabs just locally right here at Home Depot. We’ve had a lot of stuff going on throughout the neighborhood,” said Lakewood resident Gregory Slaughter.
Surprisingly, the neighborhood is close to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Lakewood Station, but victims said the deputies don’t always respond quickly.
“The average wait to report a burglary report or one of these crimes is over two hours here in Lakewood,” said Lakewood resident Danny King.
Neighbors now are joining forces, they want the city council to form a task force to take on the criminals.
“What are the cops doing, if they can’t control their own area behind their sheriff’s station, how are they going to control anything else?” Cuaron asked.