In what Los Angeles police are calling a study in how to get caught, a bungling burglar left footprints, fingerprints, and even photos of himself at an Arleta home.
Lt. Paul Vernon said the man, identified as 25-year-old Miguel Luna, kicked in the front door of a house on Sharp Avenue on Nov. 13 and started to ransack a bedroom.
He made so much noise that he awoke the owner, who had been asleep in another room, Vernon said.
Luna begged the owner not to call police and ran out to his car – which wouldn’t start, the LAPD said in a press release.
He then came back into the house, again asking the residents not to call police. The man who owned the house chased Luna out of the house, police said, and hit him with a gardening hoe while his wife called police.
Luna, police said, was knocked out by the blow from the homeowner, but soon revived and walked away. He left his car in the driveway – full of his own property as well as electronics that may have been stolen from other homes, police said.
Among the items found: an iPad with Luna’s photographs on it and a traffic ticket bearing his name, police said.
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“It’s often said in forensics that we always leave a little bit of ourselves behind anywhere we’ve been,” said Vernon, Commanding Officer of Mission Detective Division. “But this guy must have set some record on the variety and amount of evidence he left.”
