Overview

• Juan Carlos Montiel was taken into custody on Oct. 8 by Huntington Beach police in connection with church burglaries.
• The investigation began after an Aug. 17 encounter at First Christian Church on Main Street, where a worker confronted a man who claimed to be an electrician responding to a power outage.
• Police say the suspect left when told there was no outage, and evidence recovered at the scene matched Montiel to surveillance video.
• Authorities say Montiel used a similar method at multiple churches, with CBS citing police assertions of incidents across Southern California.
• HBPD says Montiel was booked for burglary and is seeking additional victims and information at [email protected] as the investigation continues.