Homeless man arrested in downtown Los Angeles' chainsaw tree massacre
A man has been arrested in connection with dozens of city-owned trees in Los Angeles that were cut down with a chainsaw over the Easter Holiday weekend.
While law enforcement officials had no leads on April 20, some Angelenos were busy posting photos to Reddit and Instagram of all the felled trees downtown.
In photos, trees were seen in pieces at locations including 1st Street and Wilshire Boulevard, Olympic Boulevard and Hope Street, Olympic Boulevard and Figueroa Street, Broadway and Cesar Chavez Avenue, Grand Avenue in front of the Wells Fargo Center and Grand Avenue and 5th Street.
By late afternoon Easter Sunday, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass had chimed in, saying in a statement that 'someone would do this is truly beyond comprehension.'
Cindy Aguilar, a building manager at 8th Street and Union Avenue, said she saw the news over the weekend but never thought anyone would target trees in the Westlake area until she began scouring through her building's surveillance cameras Monday morning.
That's when she found images of the suspect hard at work.
'It was very sad to see trees just come down like,' she told KTLA's Mary Beth McDade. 'They're damaged and they can't just grow again. We might have to replace them and they're a lot of money.'
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Aguilar reached out to a nearby business owner who confirmed he saw what appeared to be the same person taking trees down with a chainsaw.
By Tuesday evening, police had released a community alert with a picture of the chainsaw-wielding suspect. Rampart officers told KTLA that they recognized the man as homeless and were aware of some of his regular hangouts.
While police didn't say exactly where, the suspect was located at one of those hangouts and taken into custody, the chainsaw still on him, according to police.
City Public Works crews have already started the work of removing the timber and cleaning up. Trees that belong to the city are expected to be replaced.
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