Bizarre story out of the Inland Empire (of course).

San Bernardino sheriff's deputies say a man burglarized a home in the town of Metone, was pepper sprayed by its owner as he fled, then got into a car crash nearby.

When cops caught up with him at the crash scene — at Greenspot and Santa Ana Truck roads — they said the smelled pepper spray.

Perfectly normal in the I.E.

Except …

… the suspect turned out to be an LAPD sergeant.

Authorities ID'd the alleged burglar as 44-year-old Lucien Daigle of Highland. The San Bernardino Sun's original crime brief didn't even have him as an LAPD employee. He was arrested on suspicion of residential burglary and held in lieu of $125,000 bail.

Today the department issued a statement saying that Daigle, an 18-year LAPD veteran assigned to the Olympic Division in Koreatown, was placed on “administrative leave” pending the criminal case and its own internal investigation.

The burglary was reported Sunday at 6:20 p.m. in the 8900 block of Tres Lagos Drive when the resident came home from a dog walk to find its back door open.


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The Sun says that when officers caught up to the suspect he had some of the woman's possession on him.

Strange. Was the burglar actually looking for valuables (and, by the way, an 18-year LAPD sarge has to be pulling down nearly six figures), or was it a sexual thing?

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]

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