Single father struggling after work van stolen, torched in Southern California

A Southern California man’s livelihood was compromised when thieves stole his work van containing thousands of dollars worth of tools he’s bought over the years, stripped the vehicle for parts and set it on fire late last week.

A single father of four, Travell Harding, a contract painter, said he was hoping he’d be able to recover the vehicle, which was stolen while parked across the street from his home in Artesia, and some of the tools.

“It’s my livelihood,” he explained. “It’s like someone burning your shop down.”

When he found out it had been torched, he said he couldn’t believe it.

“I call the tow truck, I say, ‘Hey, I want to get my truck, what’s left of it. I want to get some tools out of it,’” he explained. “They were like, ‘No, you don’t understand. Your van is completely in rubble, there’s nothing for you to get out of it.’ They cut my hood in half and took out the engine. They cut out the catalytic converter, gutted it and set it on fire.”

Officers with California Highway Patrol recovered the charred van, which was burned beyond recognition, in a riverbed several miles from his home.

The suspects made off with all his equipment, paints, brushes, sprayers and tools he’d inherited from his late father, who was also a contract painter.

To make the situation even worse, Harding’s insurance doesn’t cover anything beyond a car collision, not even a brazen theft like this.

“I work out of my van. I don’t have an office,” he told KTLA’s Rachel Menitoff. “I’m a small business owner and that was everything in that van.”

In his spare time, Harding runs a nonprofit organization – Fighters for the World – that’s dedicated to helping at-risk teens and his work in the community has not gone unnoticed.

“People are calling me, saying, ‘I’m going to look in my garage, maybe I have a paintbrush, maybe I have this,’ and I’m like, ‘Let me know, I’ll come by and pick it up,’” he said.

A GoFundMe campaign was also organized to help Harding replace some of his equipment and, eventually, buy a new van with added security.

“Even before I pick up some new tools, I’m scared they’re going to be taken again, so I’m putting a kill switch in my truck and an alarm, whatever I can do off the bat to help protect it because they’re targets,” Harding explained.

Investigators with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department’s Lakewood Station are handling the case, but so far, no suspects have been identified.

Harding believes the work is likely a group of professional thieves because of the way they were able to strip the vehicle so quickly.

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