LOS ANGELES _ An oddly persistent vandal spent six hours smashing, scratching and jumping up and down on a single parked car in Los Angeles on Thanksgiving Day, as bystanders and surveillance cameras documented the holiday spectacle, according to authorities.
Stacy Omelianoff had left her Buick Lucerne parked in front of a friend's apartment in the Koreatown neighborhood on Thanksgiving, before heading off to a celebration in Chino, KCBS reported. While she was away, the black sedan apparently caught the eye of a homeless woman walking through the area.
A security camera on a nearby apartment building recorded the woman as she tore off one of the car's windshield wipers and used it to carve letters and scribbles into the paint. The woman then used a metal pipe and a piece of wood to scratch, smash and graffiti the doors, hood and roof of the car over a period of hours.
Video showed the woman at times sitting on the hood and walking onto the roof and jumping up and down. Omelianoff's tires were flattened and the grill of the car yanked out, she told KCBS.
People who saw the woman vandalizing the car did nothing to help, Omelianoff told KCBS.
"They would come by, stop, back up, take pictures, video, and just take off," she said.
Omelianoff didn't discover the vandalism until the next day when she was notified by the LAPD, who had arrested the woman after a witness called police, KCBS reported.
"I'm angry, I'm hurt, frustrated, and at the same time I understand that she has a mental problem," Omelianoff said of the assailant. She said video showed the woman vandalizing the car in two different time periods over the holiday, for a total of six hours.
The woman was arrested and taken to the hospital for a mental evaluation, news outlets reported.
