The city center of the has known its share of violence. Then someone went after her trees.

On a section well loaded with Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, three orange and white traffic cones are at the top of dirt in gates on the sidewalk where three trees stood in the past.

It is not a construction site. It’s a kind of crime scene.

The three trees were among the victims of a bizarre frenzy of eight days of eight days of a man who destroyed more than a dozen mature trees in and around the city center of Los Angeles, to houses of houses of the town hall and the concert hall of Walt Disney of Frank Gehry.

The man, according to the authorities, traveled the streets in the middle of the night and used a chain saw to cut the elm, the ficus and other trees. Some have been sawn just through the middle. Others ended up with naked branches. Officials said damage totaled $ 347,000. It was apprehended on the day of the earth.

The city center of Los Angeles is one of these urban American places which, in a way, given everything.

There were violent attacks that made the headlines, such as a shooting on a target in December which injured two security agents. There is homelessness, with tents and camps spread over the sidewalks and doors. He had emptied during the pandemic, but experienced a renewal while tourists and residents flock to popular places like Grand Central Market. The city center remains a hub of demonstrations and gatherings, including a parade last year celebrating the victory of the Dodgers World Series.

But the sight of the massacred trees, some of the rare places of greenery in a landscape of concrete and skyscraper, rocked Angelenos far beyond the city center.

The case launched an intense manhunt, encouraging the police to ask the public for advice and to travel surveillance images. The mayor, the district prosecutor and the city leaders weighed. There have been press conferences calling for increased investments in public security. After the forest fires that destroyed thousands of houses and upset thousands of lives three months ago, some residents wondered: what is the next step?