Los Angeles Port police arrested three people Feb. 13 suspected of stealing bronze memorial plaques in November.
Dionzay Tisby, 42, Brittany Draper, 37, and Deona Jackson, 28, were arrested in southwest Los Angeles County and booked on suspicion of felony grand theft, port spokesman Phillip Sanfield told The Epoch Times.
All three were charged and released the next day, according to officials, under the county’s zero-bail policy.
Port police say the three are suspected of stealing bronze plaques from the Japanese Fishing Village Memorial on Terminal Island, and the International Warehouse and Longshore Union “Bloody Thursday” Memorial on Harbor Boulevard and the American Merchant Marine Veterans Memorial, both in San Pedro.
“The heartless theft of these plaques was an insult to the memories of families who built this region through the fishing industry, who moved goods as part of the [International Longshore and Warehouse Union], and who protected our country during the war as Merchant marine sailors,” Los Angeles Councilman Tim McOsker said in a press release Feb. 13.
The suspects had the bronze cemetery markers with them when they were arrested, Mr. McOsker said.
Police also have evidence linking the suspects to thefts of grave markers interred at cemeteries in the region, according to Los Angeles Port Police Chief Tom Gazsi. Some of the plaques date more than 100 years, he said.
