A Miracle Mile community is on edge after surveillance cameras recorded a prowler snooping around the backyards of up to three homes.
Video shows him removing lights and even cutting the power to one home.
On the home's extensive security camera system, the prowler could be seen shortly after 2 a.m. last Wednesday removing the bulbs from exterior lighting, and then roaming the back and side yards for 15 minutes, at times peering into windows, before going to the circuit breaker box located on the exterior wall outside the home of a Dunsmuir Avenue resident who asked to be identified as Elizabeth Parker.
Parker and her family were asleep, but security cameras recorded video of a prowler lurking outside her son's bedroom.
"When you are that close to me and my children, I don't know what your next step is, but I don't need to find out," Parker said.
In checking with other neighbors in her block, Parker discovered their security cameras recorded what appears to be the same intruder, in the same green jacket with backpack, on property outside two other homes. In one case it appeared outdoor lighting had been refocused to blind a security camera.
Amid an increase in burglaries in the Wilshire area, detectives are finding perpetrators in some cases targeting the increasingly prevalent electronic security measures.
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"Here, you can see where he's pointed the landscaping lights against the camera," said Parker said. "He was within two feet of my son's head."
The prowler unscrewed both bulbs, before jumping an 8-foot fence and entering the backyard. He looked in windows, lurking 15 minutes, and apparently, out of camera view, went to the circuit breaker box and turned off the electricity.
"He was here to study the home a long period and cut off the power, and we have no idea what he did after that," Parker said.
"Situation like this is pretty scary," said LAPD Detective Joe Alves. "If they see that box, they're going to go for it, because they know most people have cameras and alarms."
The alarm had a backup battery, but the prowler never tried to break in. But he did check doors and windows.
Security camera video never saw him breaking into a home or car, but on Parker's video he can be seen trying her car door handle before going into the backyard.
A security camera at a neighbor's home saw what appears to be the same man walking down a driveway where later was found a wallet from a car reported broken into that night.
After more than a decade of dropping crime rates, property crimes began increasing in recent years. Citywide, burglaries are up about 2 percent, Alves said, but 12 percent
in the Wilshire area. Why is unclear, but one factor may be the broad east-west thoroughfares that provide access to the city's midsection. The series of sightings of the Dunsmuir prowler occurred in the block south of Olympic Boulevard.
