Burglary: February 2009 Archives

This was from yesterday: Torrance SWAT nabs burglary suspect

I found questions waiting for me when I arrived today. Some residents of Torrance wondered what was up early Saturday morning......

Q. Larry, thought you might shed some light. Last night, there were a few helicopters buzzing around North Torrance (specifically 175th street) from about 3:30 until well after 4 am. Do you know what was going on?

Q. Maybe you can help me. I am trying to find out what happened in my neighborhood (177th Street between Hawthorne and Prairie) last night. A helicopter was circling the area in the middle of the night. We stayed in, but would really like to know what was happening.


A. Here's what Torrance police Lt. Mark Hein told me this morning:

Police responded to a burglary in progress at 3:35 a.m. in the 4000 block of 175th Place. The caller said people with flashlights were looking into cars.

The burglars ran when police arrived. Officers caught one immediately, but another took off running.

Police surrounded the neighborhood. A sheriff's helicopter circled above, and Redondo Beach police arrived with police dogs.

They found the burglary, along with the fact several cars had been broken into in the area.

The suspects were identified as Marco Perez, 22, of Long Beach and a female, Daisey Serrano, 20, also of Long Beach.

They were held on suspicion of burglary.

Our sister paper, The Beach Reporter, interviewed the Hermosa Beach resident who confronted a burglar from neighboring Manhattan Beach in his home last week. Here's their story.

Daily Breeze Assistant City Editor Josh Grossberg was victimized. Here's his story:

Somebody broke into my house yesterday and took some things of little monetary value, but were very important to me.

How did they get in? I left the back door open for the half hour I was gone.

It was trash day and I knew rain was coming, so I wanted to get the bins out early. I left the door open because I did only half of the trash cans and was planning to do the rest when I got home.

In other words, I was stupid. And some idiot criminal who has no regard for other people's belongings got lucky.