LOS ALAMITOS (CNS) - A naked man believed to be under the influence of a narcotic frightened a family in the unincorporated Rossmoor area of Orange County near Los Alamitos, then ran off and tried to hide from sheriff's deputies on top of an elementary school before surrendering peacefully, authorities said today.
Sheriff's deputies went to Francis Hopkinson Elementary School at 12582 Kensington Road about 9:05 p.m. Wednesday and began negotiations to try to talk the man off the roof, according to Lt. Ken Binning of the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
The suspect had entered a home near the school in the adjacent community of Rossmoor, where he walked into the bedroom of a 14-year-old boy, awakened the boy, asked him a question, then undressed himself, according to the OCSD.
The teenager ran from his room to alert his parents and armed himself with a meat cleaver. The suspect followed the boy and, at one point, wrapped a USB cable around the mother's shoulder before being chased out of the home by the boy's father, who had been outside the home during the incident, the sheriff's department said.
The suspect jumped into a white Dodge van and drove through several streets in the area before driving onto the grass of Hopkinson Elementary, where he climbed onto the roof of one of the buildings and tried to hide, the OCSD said.
Deputies and police officers from Los Alamitos and Seal Beach Police Departments surrounded the school and made multiple announcements for the suspect to surrender.
About 11:30 p.m., the man climbed off the roof using a ladder provided to him by the Orange County Fire Authority and surrendered.
Deputies later discovered the suspect had committed several acts of vandalism while on the roof. He was taken to a hospital before being booked on suspicion of burglary, indecent exposure, assault with a deadly weapon, vandalism, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a controlled substance, the OCSD said.
The name of the suspect was not disclosed.
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