The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has promised to increase patrols in Altadena to combat looting as residents begin to head back to their homes nearly two weeks after the Eaton fire swept through the region.
The newly formed Looter Suppression Team will provide more surveillance and a quicker response time to Altadena neigborhoods evacuated during the fire but potentially left unsecured by residents, the Sheriff’s Department announced Tuesday.
The team will join other sheriff’s deputies in the field along with helicopter coverage.
“Together, these efforts ensure continuous 24-hour patrolling to provide a consistent and visible law enforcement presence, particularly in neighborhoods still dealing with utility outages and heightened security risks,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a news release.
Several arrests were made during the Eaton and Palisades fires over the last few days, including two people caught impersonating reporters, a couple from Oregon allegedly using a decommissioned firetruck to pose as firefighters, and a burglary suspect in the Palisades fire zone who was dressed as a firefighter.
Curfew orders remain in effect for certain parts of Altadena, but more road closures and evacuation orders have been lifted in recent days.
There is no timeline for when the California National Guard will leave the region, according to Sheriff’s Deputy Jacob Sivley. The National Guard members joined local law enforcement at road checkpoints in the days following the evacuation orders, but they were not responsible for “effecting arrests in the evacuation zones,” according to Sivley.
