Burglary Suspect in Air Shaft Lands in Jail Cell
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A burglary suspect wedged himself inside the air shaft of a central Los Angeles restaurant early Saturday and remained trapped for three hours until firefighters rescued him by sawing apart the metal shaft, police said.
The suspect, unharmed during the ordeal, was then arrested, said Los Angeles Police Sgt. James Markloff of the Rampart station. Jose Felipe Garcia, 21, was charged with burglary, Markloff said.
Police responded to a 5:30 a.m. report of a man screaming in the vicinity of Shella’s restaurant in the 300 block of North Glendale Boulevard. When police entered the restaurant, they saw a man stuck midway through the restaurant’s L-shaped air shaft.
The suspect apparently had used a rope to climb down into the restaurant through the air shaft. After allegedly trying to pry open a cash register, “he tried to shimmy back out, but he couldn’t quite make the turn in the L-shaped shaft,” Markloff said.
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