23 Cars Vandalized; 4 Boys in Redondo Beach Charged

Four Redondo Beach boys--one of them 11 years old--have been charged with vandalism after a weekend car-smashing spree in which they admitted to shattering the windshields and gouging the paint on more than 20 parked cars in 2 1/2 hours.

“They weren’t gang members. They were just white, middle-class kids with nothing better to do,” Redondo Beach Police Detective Paul Hellinga said of the youths. “They just drove along at about five miles an hour, smashing cars as they went along.”

Hellinga said they started shortly before 1 a.m Saturday with just one car--a Redondo Beach lawyer’s black BMW, which he had parked on the 300 block of South Guadalupe Avenue, then went out again 9 p.m. Sunday and vandalized at least 22 more cars.

According to the father of one the boys, the driver, who is 16, had decided to go cruising with another 16-year-old, who brought along the 11-year-old and a fourth boy, 15, whom the driver had never met.

“From what I understand, they were driving along and the 15-year-old kid said, ‘Pull over--stop here a second,’ ” said the father, who spoke on condition that his name not be used. “So they pulled over, and the kid, who had a baseball bat with him, got out, smashed the window out of the car, and then said, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ ”

The father said his son had no idea that his passenger was planning to vandalize the BMW, which, according to the owner, will cost at least $600 to fix. Nonetheless, he took his friends out again in his El Camino pickup.

Hellinga said the boys used a baseball bat to smash the back windows out of one parked car after another, until they finally broke the bat and resorted to driving up and down the streets of Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach scratching cars with the blades of hunting knives. Damage, he said, ranged from about $200 to $1,000 per car.

“I’m surprised that local boys would do a thing like this,” said Paul Markley, 35, of Hermosa Beach, whose 1986 Audi was scratched down to the metal. “If they were my boys, I’d say ‘Get a job and pay for the damage you did.’ ”

Hellinga said one of the cars belonged to a single mother “living paycheck to paycheck” who had to borrow $160 from a friend to replace the rear window of her old station wagon.

Hellinga said two of the boys had prior criminal records. The driver’s 16-year-old friend had been arrested for burglary, and the 15-year-old had been arrested for numerous thefts and assaults, he said.

The driver had no prior criminal record, and according to his father, has offered all the money he has to one victim as restitution. The youth has offered to repay the other victims with the proceeds from his part-time job, the father said.

Hellinga said the group was arrested at 11:30 p.m. Sunday when they returned to the house where they had smashed up the BMW and were spotted by a Redondo Beach patrolman who, for the past hour, had been hearing descriptions on his squad car radio of their vehicle and the damage being left in its wake.

The boys were charged with vandalism and released to the custody of their parents pending arraignment, which Hellinga said will probably be next week, when all the victims have been found and interviewed.