Arborcide! Chainsaw-Wielding Suspect on Bicycle Wanted for Cutting Down Trees in Downtown LA – Twitchy

Someone has taken a chainsaw to several trees in Los Angeles. These are city-managed trees in the downtown area. The bizarre crime has authorities and posters wondering what caused someone to do this.

Start here. (READ)

Multiple trees have been chopped down throughout downtown Los Angeles, California, according to DTLA Insider.

“Some piece of you know what decided that they’re gonna go around last night chopping down trees all over downtown LA.”

“Completely speechless and baffled at why anyone would do this and think it is acceptable. It’s time for action. This can’t continue,” DTLA Insider said on IG.

Wild.

Check out the damage. (WATCH)

NEW: Multiple trees have been chopped down throughout downtown Los Angeles, California, according to DTLA Insider.

“Some piece of you know what decided that they’re gonna go around last night chopping down trees all over downtown LA.”

“Completely speechless and baffled at why… pic.twitter.com/K3ngiLDOyk

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 20, 2025

The cutting crime has some posters hoping the culprit receives a hefty sentence.

I would genuinely be OK with this person going to jail for life.

It takes decades to grow a tree, with great care especially in a city.

This sort of action from a human is just someone who wants to watch the world burn.

They can do so from a jail cell forever.

— Matt Van Swol (@matt_vanswol) April 20, 2025

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A new kind of urban terrorism
It wastes city resources from the outside in.

— Dr. Darby Bailey McD 🖍️💫 (@DrDarbyXO) April 21, 2025

Send him to jail until each tree fully grows back

— Muhammad (@MuhammadA1776) April 21, 2025

That’s about 20 years or so.

So far, no witnesses, outside of two security guards, have stepped forward. This has commenters questioning how something like this happens without crowds of people seeing it. 

How is it even possible to cut down a tree in downtown LA without anyone noticing?

— General™️ (@TheGeneral_0) April 20, 2025

Electric chainsaws make almost no noise.

— Don Fraser (@DonTClovis) April 20, 2025

Downtown LA is a ghost town at night. Mostly just homeless people.

— Lon Jake (@LonJake) April 20, 2025

You’re joking right? You can walk downtown L.A pantless swinging your junk at the cops. A homeless lumberjack would blend right in.

— Subtard #1 (@SubtardUnion) April 21, 2025

Posters say we may have to rely more on machines than man to solve this arborcide mystery.

I would think there would be surveillance cameras all over that could help identify the tree killers. I think vandalism isn’t a strong enough term for what they did. It’s not like the damage can be repaired, except by planting a new tree and waiting decades for it to grow large.

— art_studio54 (@whitten_su30445) April 21, 2025

With all the cameras I would think it would be easy to develop a suspect(s).

— Neil H. Schott (@NeilSchott0315) April 20, 2025

Surely they have this moron on video. You can’t go anywhere in LA without being on video. 🤬

— Buzz Patterson (@BuzzPatterson) April 20, 2025

Those aforementioned security guards say they captured the suspect on surveillance video. They say it was a person with a chainsaw riding on a bicycle. That video has yet to be made public as of this writing.