Pumpkin Thieves Caught Smashing Car Windshield

Two South Bay men out on a post-Halloween pumpkin-smashing spree were caught, well, orange-handed early Friday after four Hermosa Beach car owners reported that someone had stolen the jack-o’-lanterns from their porches and used them to smash the windshields of their cars, police said.

Hermosa Beach Police Officer Tom Thompson said Randy Scott Dickey, 20, of Torrance and Michael Steven Dolbec, 21, of Dominguez Hills were charged with vandalism after police caught them throwing a basketball-sized pumpkin through the windshield of a 1984 Jaguar just after midnight.

Dickey, who was also charged with public drunkenness, told police that the two had been goaded into the act by two men they had met in a bar, Thompson said.