‘A menace to the community’: Fresno church vandalized as DA calls for PRCS change in Sacramento

FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – St. Michael the Archangel Anglican Church off Shaw and Palm avenues in Fresno has been hit with thousands of dollars in damage, after they say a man vandalized multiple windows on four separate occasions at their buildings from late June to early July.

Police identified the suspect as 57-year-old Frank Dominguez. The church says he was captured in the act on surveillance video on two of the four occasions.

He is in custody on no bail and is facing a felony vandalism charge, after the church says he caused fear and anger through his alleged spree of destruction.

“Your church is under attack,” said Father Townsend Waddill of St. Michael’s. “And that’s very much the way it felt to us because of the fact that it was happening over and over and over again.”

Waddill says he hopes this is the last time this ever happens to them, after he says police caught Dominguez in the act on July 20.

“My cleaning person was on campus, could actually hear the glass breaking. So, he immediately called 911,” he said. “While Fresno Police was in the parking lot, he started throwing more rocks.”

Waddill says it all started on June 28 and hit them with unexpected expenses.

“We already have invoices in hand for $6,000. That’s for about half the glass. We’re expecting probably somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000 worth of damage,” said Waddill, who adds he’s thankful Sierra Glass came to help in the middle of the night to board up windows.

Dominguez has a long criminal history and was back on the streets after getting out of jail in April.

However, due to a lack of violent charges to date, he was on post-release community supervision, which officials say kept him in the public to break laws and allowed him to vandalize the church.

“This person is an example of somebody who has had prior convictions for DUI, for drugs, for vandalism. You know, he’s a menace to the community,” said Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp.

Smittcamp sat down with YourCentralValley.com to discuss Dominguez and others with a similar record. She says this is not a Fresno County or Central Valley problem; instead, she says it falls to the state.

Smittcamp says thanks to AB109, which realigned the state’s prison system to push more offenders to county jurisdictions and PRCS, and legislation like Prop. 47, many of the tools they used to keep criminals accountable have been taken away.

“We have people looking at us, looking at the police department, looking at the sheriff’s department, looking at the jail, looking at the DA’s office saying, ‘Why are you failing our community?,'” she said. “We’re not. We’re doing the best that we can with the resources we have and the laws that are passed by Sacramento legislators.”

The Fresno County District Attorney says she hopes her office will be able to charge this as a felony.

Dominguez will be back in court for a PRCS hearing on Aug. 7.