‘Twas a couple of weeks before Christmas, when the culprit sneaked up to a San Pedro home, snatched a package on the porch and ran off with the goods.

But a witness quickly caught the thief: an unlikely but rather anxious bushy-tailed squirrel.

The package was returned to its owner. The incident was caught on a home surveillance camera.

Not everyone is so lucky, however. As online shopping becomes increasingly popular, so too has “porch piracy” — or the pilfering of delivered packages.

Typically, according to FedEx, Amazon and other delivery and online companies, such issues are swiftly resolved.

But sometimes — particularly during the holidays, when timing is of the essence — porch piracy begets long-term conflict and disappointment.

Recently, nearly 300 Amazon packages were stolen from a post office in Amador County in Northern California. Indeed, the problem appears to be especially acute in the most populous state in the country.

Three of the top 10 metro areas in the nation most susceptible to porch piracy are in California, according to a recent report by SafeWise, an independent security system review site. The rating list was compiled by comparing FBI crime data with Google Trends searches for missing and stolen packages.

The watchdog site examined metro area package theft rates for the entire year, compared with holiday-specific theft rates.

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The San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose area came in first, SafeWise found. Los Angeles and the Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto area came in at ninth and 10th place, respectively. In these areas, the rate of theft was determined to be consistent throughout the year.

Other regions in the top 10 list were Salt Lake City; Portland, Ore.; Baltimore; Seattle-Tacoma; Chicago; Austin, Texas; and Denver.

Asked if SafeWise’s findings aligned with their own internal data, the U.S. Postal Service and Amazon did not respond or declined to comment. Jonathan Lyons, a spokesman for FedEx, also declined to provide data about reported package thefts. But he did cite a 2018 Comcast and Wakefield Research Survey, which indicated that “1 in 4 Americans has fallen victim to package theft.”

But he also noted that “there are steps our customers can take for added peace of mind.”

FedEx has instituted its own preventive measures, including having items shipped to alternative destinations, such as a relative’s home, one’s workplace, a FedEx office location or an authorized shipping center, such as Walgreens or Albertsons.

To ensure that items are not left unattended, customers can also schedule deliveries at a convenient time or require a signature from the recipient. Specific delivery instructions can also be provided to FedEx drivers. “Do you like your packages left behind the big planter or tucked behind the grill beside the back door?” the company asks.

Some customers have installed surveillance cameras and video doorbells to keep an eye on their parcels, while a few law enforcement agencies have resorted to elaborate sting operations, using packages with GPS trackers inside, in an effort to reduce the number of thefts.

In Amador County, where some 300 parcels were stolen from the post office on Dec. 1, local authorities have no surveillance footage or witness information to go on. On the sheriff’s Facebook page, victims of the theft are encouraged to share their experience.

Through a post, Jean Michelle Morgan Ballard indicated that she’d lost out on nine packages of gifts for her grandchildren. Likewise, Victoria Cox Noble was waiting on three presents. When Cox Noble reported the loss, she said, Amazon gave her a refund. Still, she will not be able to replace the products, one of which was part of a Black Friday sale, because they are no longer available.

To date, only a handful of victims have come forward. Plus, “Amazon never reached out to us, never gave us any information,” Amador County Undersheriff Gary Redman said. As a result, the agency has been unable “to determine the level of theft.”

All of the stolen packages were taken from a post office that was closed for the day.

The delivery person, who was hired through a third-party company, left them at the wrong place, Redman said.

A joyous New Orleans-style Second Line parade to honor the roughly 1,000 homeless people who have died in Los Angeles County this year turned to anger on Friday, as skid row mourners stopped at City Hall to denounce elected officials for not halting the growing death toll.

Dozens of skid row residents and advocates, all decked out in Mardi Gras beads and flying black, gold and purple balloons, chanted: “Three a day! Too many!” They waved their fists at the windows of City Hall, where a homeless man in his 50s was found dead Tuesday night.

The parade and angry demonstration were part of National Homeless Persons Memorial Day, marked in dozens of cities.

L.A.’s day of mourning began soberly at the James Wood Community Center with prayers, songs and the traditional recitation of the names of all people who died at skid row missions and programs. Later, advocates planned to release candles at Echo Park Lake, where dozens of people have been living and dying in tents over the past year.

The Los Angeles County Public Health found in October that deaths among homeless people have increased each year, from 536 in 2013 to 1,047 in 2018. The tally so far this year is 963, they said.

Pete White of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, the parade organizer, accused City Atty. Mike Feuer of hypocrisy for expressing sadness over the homeless man who died outside City Hall, the same week the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a landmark homelessness case that curbs police powers to clear homeless encampments when there aren’t enough shelter beds available.

Feuer and officials from several other cities and counties across California had asked the high court to either clarify or overturn the lower court ruling in City of Boise vs. Martin.

“The city attorney had the audacity to hold a press conference [about the death] … when, days before, his office was trying to figure out how to criminalize that man,” White said.

Rob Wilcox, the city attorney spokesman, said Feuer wanted the court to clarify the Boise ruling, not to extend police powers over homeless people.

Feuer announced the man’s death at a press conference on Wednesday morning.

“He was someone’s son. He might’ve been somebody’s dad or somebody’s brother,” Feuer said. “I don’t know. But I do know that he died alone, and if there is any truth to statistics, he is not alone.”

The first parade to mark National Homeless Persons Memorial Day took off at noon Friday from San Julian Park, accompanied by drums, a trumpet, a keyboard, bicycles festooned with beads and Christmas garlands, and a giant banner that included photos of skid row residents who had died. It was labeled “Death by neglect” and contained a dot map of every homeless death site in Los Angeles County in the past year.

Several singers led the crowd in “Wade in the Water” and other civil rights anthems. Stephanie Arnold Williams, a longtime skid row advocate, sped around the crowd in red sequined skates, live streaming the parade on Facebook from a solar-powered tablet strapped to her back.

“When death comes to the doorstep of City Hall, you know we must respond,” White said. “We are going to set up shrines to show our people didn’t die in vain.”

Several of the dead were remembered by name, including Rodney Evans, who died on skid row waiting to get housing.

The parade eventually returned to the skid row corner where Dwayne Fields, a longtime skid row street musician, was killed in August when his tent was set on fire in what authorities said was an intentional act.

Jonathan Early, 38, who also was homeless, has been charged in Fields’ death. The death — and that of his partner, Valarie Wertlow, a month later — underscores the stakes in the epidemic of homeless deaths.

“Fields was a Jimi Hendrix impersonator in Las Vegas, and he was a better guitarist than Jimi Hendrix,” Anderson said. “It’s like genius is being snuffed out. This is all of our fight.”

A storm will bring widespread rain to Southern California from Sunday through Monday evening, according to the National Weather Service, and winter weather advisories are in effect beginning as early as noon on Sunday for the higher elevations.

Snow levels are expected to be in the range of 5,500 to 6,500 feet on Sunday, but then lower to between 5,000 and 6,000 feet on Monday. And snow could potentially dip down to 4,500 feet locally on some interior slopes.

It’s possible that there could be snow down to the level of the Grapevine, which is at about 4,100 feet, on Monday night, said Curt Kaplan, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Oxnard. That would be the result of this complicating factor: The moist southwest flow bringing the rain may encounter a cold, dry easterly wind, which would cause evaporative cooling. That cold offshore flow could cause snow levels to dip to the level of the I-5 Freeway through the Tehachapi Mountains.

Isolated thunderstorms are also a possibility with this system, especially in the afternoon and evening hours on Monday, because of instability caused by cool temperatures aloft.

Significant snow accumulations are likely above 7,000 feet, with lighter accumulations down to 5,000 feet.

Another storm is expected on Wednesday and Thursday, but the timing is uncertain. However, with this second system, snow levels may drop to 4,000 feet on Thursday, which would affect Interstate 5 over the Grapevine.

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The Torah scrolls lay strewn on the floor of Nessah Synagogue, some wrinkled and unraveled, others thrown on chairs alongside shredded prayer books. Piles of blue and white tallits and kippahs littered the floor, pulled from their cubbies by a vandal who had broken into the house of worship during Shabbat.

Around 7 a.m., an employee arrived to discover the chaos and called the police. By midday, word of the destruction had spread throughout the congregation.

“When my husband came home and told me what happened, I was shocked. The whole community was shocked,” said Simin Imanuel, a longtime congregant.

The vandalism at one of the country’s most prominent Iranian synagogues on Dec. 14 has stunned congregants who said they never thought the anti-Semitic graffiti and intolerance they saw happening at other temples and schools would reach their doorstep.

“Our worst nightmare basically came to light,” said Farzad Rabbany, who has been a member of the Beverly Hills synagogue for years. “This particular synagogue is very dear to the Jewish Iranians that fled the 1979 revolution in Iran, and this is what we call home. It is the largest Persian synagogue in the United States, and perhaps the world.”

The attack comes at a time when the community is especially alert to anti-Semitic violence. Earlier this month, two shooters killed three people at a Jewish grocery store, in addition to a police officer at a cemetery about a mile away. In April, a shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in San Diego County came exactly six months after 11 worshipers were killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Rabbany is grateful, he said, that the crime at his synagogue stopped at vandalism.

The synagogue was founded by Rabbi David Shofet, who immigrated to the United States in 1980 from Tehran in the aftermath of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Shofet aimed to create a place in which Iranian Jews could pray together, maintain the traditions they followed back home and teach the next generation.

“This is the stuff that you don’t think is going to come and affect you personally, but it is unfortunately becoming a fact of life,” said Rabbany, who moved to Southern California in 1987 after fleeing Iran. “As Persian Jews, we have been through it all, and we know what anti-Semitism is. We know the danger of it.”

Hate crimes in Los Angeles County have reached their highest point in nearly a decade, according to an annual report by the L.A. County Commission on Human Relations. Although religious crimes overall declined slightly, anti-Jewish crimes rose 14% and constituted 83% of religion-motivated crimes.

But most anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. do not happen at large events or through deadly violence.

Last year, the Anti-Defamation League reported that “4.2 million anti-Semitic tweets were shared or re-shared in English on Twitter” over a yearlong period ending in January 2018.

At a community town hall at the Beverly Hilton on Wednesday evening, Beverly Hills police announced that authorities had arrested a suspect in connection with the vandalism — news that was met with a standing ovation.

Anton Nathaniel Redding of Millersville, Pa., has been charged with vandalism of a religious property and commercial burglary, charges that include a penalty enhancement for a hate crime, police said.

Sitting in one of the back rows at the town hall, Beverly Hills Planning Commissioner Farshid Shooshani described the wreckage at his synagogue as “a shock to our system.”

“Our community has been here 40 years. This is the first time we’ve had such an incident,” said Shooshani. “It’s psychologically very devastating because being in Los Angeles, being in Beverly Hills, we are living in one of the safest cities in the area. Fortunately, the damage was not much, but I think people have realized that there’s danger everywhere.”

Shooshani’s wife and father-in-law were among the first members of the synagogue, he said.

“Our connections to the synagogue are very deep,” he said. “In a way, this is the center of the community … our history began here. This is the mother synagogue and from this, people went to other synagogues in different places.”

Iranian Jews began immigrating to the United States in earnest amid the chaos of the 1979 revolution and the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s regime. Khomeini’s revolution drove about half of Iran’s 80,000 Jews into exile. Some moved to New York or Israel, but many of those immigrants have settled in or near Beverly Hills.

“Our city was one of the first places of refuge for a large portion of the Jewish Persian community,” Beverly Hills Mayor John Mirisch said. “This has been their home for more than 30 years.”

When Mirisch walked into Nessah Synagogue the morning of Dec. 14, he said, he cried at the sight of the damage.

“The images evoke something that is terrible because it goes to the heart of the disease that is Jew hatred, that has been around almost from time immemorial,” he said. “A painting thrown down, a clock broken and stopped, shattered glass — it brings back images of Kristallnacht.”

The synagogue has bound generations of families together. Rabbi Shofet’s father, Hakham Yedidia Shofet, was the chief rabbi of Tehran. Many congregants and their family members were married by the elder Shofet in Iran, while his son led their children’s wedding or bar mitzvah in Beverly Hills.

“Everyone in our community knows people who go there, whether it’s cousins or friends or fellow Iranian Jews,” Siamak Kordestani, assistant director of the American Jewish Committee’s Los Angeles office, said of Nessah. “When we are in a synagogue where Farsi is spoken or understood by so many people, you automatically feel like you are taken back to your country of origin.”

Kordestani, who had his bar mitzvah at Nessah, said that many fear anti-Semitic attacks or vandalism are becoming commonplace. Nessah’s main Torah scrolls were locked up and spared from the crime, he said, but the community is “definitely on edge.”

“I think there’s certainly a sense that our community has been targeted to a great extent throughout history, but also at the present moment — globally and around the country,” he said.

Thursday afternoon, hundreds of worshipers packed into Nessah’s pews for the conclusion of a rare public fast, praying to restore the Torah that was desecrated in the attack. The service began with cycles of whispered psalms, followed by the booming prayers of penitence that are recited on fast days and in the early mornings ahead of the autumn High Holidays.

When the Torah service finally arrived, the faithful rushed to the aisle as a group of longtime members removed a scroll from the ark and paraded it through the synagogue. Many wiped away tears as they strained to touch and kiss its silver cover.

Men embraced the sacred text. Women bowed before it and drew their cupped hands over their faces as though drawing the light from Sabbath candles, their normal veneration imbued with extra energy.

“Seeing it whole, now you feel your soul is whole,” congregant Desiree Kesherim said. “It’s like, you’re OK now.”

As community leaders opened the Torah scroll and held it aloft, hundreds of women broke into sudden, joyful ululations.

Good morning, and welcome to the Book Club newsletter.

Join us on Jan. 27 when the book club launches its 2020 season by welcoming Ocean Vuong, award-winning poet and author of the bestselling “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.”

Vuong’s debut novel takes the form of a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. “‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ is a book of sustained beauty and lyricism, earnest and relentless, a series of high notes that trembles exquisitely almost without break,” says reviewer Steph Cha.

Tickets are now available for the Jan. 27 evening with Vuong at the Montalbán Theatre in Hollywood. Get tickets.

P.S. Book club tickets make a great gift!

Keep reading

The book club’s February pick is “From Our Land to Our Land” by Los Angeles author and former poet laureate Luis J. Rodriguez. It’s a new collection of stories and essays about race, culture, identity and belonging. Rodriguez joins book club readers on Feb. 20.

On March 11, we’ll welcome Jeanine Cummins, author of the much-talked-about “American Dirt.” Her upcoming novel is the story of an Acapulco bookstore owner who tries to cross the U.S. border with her young son after a drug cartel guns down her family. It has earned early praise from Sandra Cisneros, Don Winslow, Stephen King, Ann Patchett and John Grisham. Here’s an excerpt.

Tickets for both events are coming soon.

The power of kinship

Father Gregory Boyle says he believes in the power of a good diagnosis.

That outlook framed his response to a question from a reader at our Dec. 16 breakfast event. Her question: “The two crises I see that just burden me are the homelessness crisis we have in L.A. and how immigrants are being treated right now. What hope can you offer us on those two things?”

“No treatment plan worth a damn was ever born of a bad diagnosis,” Boyle told members of the sold-out crowd, who came to hear him talk about his latest book, “Barking to the Choir.”

“If you just think the solution to homelessness is a house, then I think it’s a bad diagnosis in the same way that jail is the solution to people who color outside the lines … and then you discover everybody is born wanting the same thing, which touches upon the immigration issue.”

In a conversation with author Héctor Tobar, Boyle talked about his three decades providing jobs and counseling to L.A. gang members and how his work offers daily inspiration — and often humorous anecdotes — for writing two books. A third is in progress.

Thank you

We started our community book club earlier this year, and the enthusiastic response from readers has exceeded all expectations.

Thank you to everyone who bought tickets, who brought a friend along to an event, who wrote to tell us what we got right and what you’d like to read next. Thank you to the brilliant authors who shared their work and the audience members who shared their stories, too. Thank you to the reader who raced up to the stage to share a shawl with Laila Lalami, and thank you to the book clubbers who took the time to meet and listen to former gang members at Homeboy Industries.

The L.A. Times Book Club is about so much more than the remarkable books we’ve been reading. It’s also about bringing people together to share a common read, a common experience, and to explore stories and ideas that bring Los Angeles together. I’m excited that we’ll be growing in 2020 with more events and more conversations every month. Stay tuned!

Thank you for reading this newsletter from the Los Angeles Times. Invite family, friends and colleagues to sign up here.

Not a subscriber? Get unlimited digital access to latimes.com. Subscribe here.

When director Robert Eggers set out to make his mind-bending 19th century drama “The Lighthouse,” starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as a pair of lighthouse keepers descending into madness, he chose to shoot the film in black-and-white using an aspect ratio dating to the days of silent movies. Eggers knew that format, known in cinematography circles as 1.3:1 or 4:3, yields a square image that would give the film a distinct look and would help transport audiences back in time.

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“It’s an old-timey aspect ratio, so on a very surface level, it helps make the movie look old,” said the filmmaker, who wrote the script with his brother Max Eggers. But there were other advantages too. “It’s also a better shape for photographing vertical objects, like a lighthouse tower, and it’s better for conveying cramped interiors and claustrophobia,” Eggers said. “Sometimes when Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are in a two-shot, it is cramped. It’s tight, and I liked that.”

Although “The Lighthouse” might be the most obvious example of the 4:3 aspect ratio onscreen this awards season, other filmmakers are using the format to tell a range of visually inventive, globe-spanning tales—everything from powerful contemporary dramas to intimate character studies — rendered through an old-fashioned lens.

It’s not the first time in recent memory that the boxier aspect ratio has enjoyed a resurgence: Best picture winner “The Artist” (2011) was shot using the classic format; the following year, Pablo Larraín’s 1980s-set “No” earned an Academy Award nomination for foreign-language film. Wes Anderson’s 2014 “The Grand Budapest Hotel” featured three different aspect ratios, including the “Academy” ratio, or 1.375:1, which earned its name when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences designated it as the standard for films shot between 1932 and 1952.

“Hotel” won four of the nine Oscars for which it was nominated, though it lost in the cinematography category to that year’s best picture winner, “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).”

First-time feature director Melina León chose the 4:3 ratio for her 1980s-set Peruvian drama “Song Without a Name” (Canción sin nombre), about a poor young woman who turns to a journalist for help finding her infant after the baby is stolen. A festival favorite that premiered at Cannes and recently screened in Los Angeles at AFI Fest, the black-and-white film, which León co-wrote with novelist Michael J. White, is based on child-trafficking cases that León’s journalist father covered decades earlier.

“The aspect ratio owes to the fact that in the ’80s we had 4:3 TVs — it was another way to bring you to the ’80s,” León explained. “The main character, Georgina, is a very humble character, and I felt that 4:3 is a humble format. It doesn’t expand too much. It occupies just enough space in the world.”

Similarly, for this season’s “Lucy in the Sky,” director Noah Hawley and cinematographer Polly Morgan used the 4:3 aspect ratio to help viewers connect with the subjective experience of Natalie Portman’s Lucy Cola, an astronaut who struggles to readjust to life on Earth following a mission to space.

“With Lucy, [Noah] really wanted to use the [aspect ratio] to contrast her feeling of claustrophobia and the feeling of being trapped when returning to Earth and then also her feeling of freedom and the feeling of wonder when she was up in space — when she was just feeling part of her experience, we chose to frame that wide-screen,” Morgan said. “I really enjoyed the process of approaching the script in a very intellectual way.”

Eggers also worked closely with his “Lighthouse” cinematographer, Jarin Blaschke, to find the best ways to visually capture the mania that takes hold of Dafoe and Pattinson’s lighthouse keepers — and to highlight the stars’ best features: “It’s a fantastic aspect ratio for close-ups,” Eggers said. “Why would you want room on either side of the frame interfering with two of the greatest faces and four of the finest cheekbones that have ever been born?”

1/10

The renovated haunt of early Hollywood star Errol Flynn is available for lease above the Sunset Strip for $25,000 a month. 

(Cody Baggett)

2/10

The house overlooks the Comedy Store from its perch in the Hollywood Hills. 

(Cody Baggett)

3/10

Various patios and balconies create additional living space outdoors. 

(Cody Baggett)

4/10

The Hollywood Hills property includes a swimming pool. 

(Cody Baggett)

5/10

Updates have given the home a modern flair. 

(Cody Baggett)

6/10

Light flows into the dining room of the Spanish-style house, which comes fully furnished. 

(Cody Baggett)

7/10

Colorful risers brighten the entryway. 

(Cody Baggett)

8/10

A balcony sits off one of the home’s five bedrooms. 

(Cody Baggett)

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A freestanding tub and bright tile accent a bathroom. 

(Cody Baggett)

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The Hollywood Hills property includes an office/den. 

(Cody Baggett)

Set above the Sunset Strip, this Spanish-style residence has had flirtations with fame stretching back decades when it was once home to Hollywood leading man Errol Flynn. A recent renovation has freshened up the multilevel house, which boasts colorful tile risers and new wide-plank wood floors. Balconies on multiple levels survey several patios, a swimming pool and the city lights below.

The details

Location: 8425 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles 90069

Asking price: $25,000 a month

Year built: 1923

Living area: 3,084 square feet, five bedrooms, five bathrooms

Lot size: 0.21 of an acre

Features: High ceilings, wide-plank wood floors, tiled fireplaces and stairs, vaulted-ceiling living room, office/den, expanded master suite, multiple patios, swimming pool

About the area: In the 90069 ZIP Code, based on 20 sales, the median price for single-family home sales in October was $2.725 million, a 40.8% increase year over year, according to CoreLogic.

Agents: James Nasser, (310) 860-8894, Westside Estate Agency

To submit a candidate for Home of the Week, send high-resolution color photos via Dropbox.com, permission from the photographer to publish the images and a description of the house to [email protected].

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For walkers who love the convenience of Pasadena but don’t want to join the stream of walkers and joggers circumnavigating the Rose Bowl, this route is a great alternative. Quiet, uncrowded and almost completely shaded, even at midday, it’s a cool way to explore the upper end of the arroyo. The walk borders Brookside Golf & Country Club, and if the weather has been wet, you’ll see where the club got its name. Wear shoes that can get wet and be prepared for a stream-crossing if there has been a lot of rain.

1. Start your walk just north of the Rose Bowl, at the intersection of West Washington Boulevard and West Drive, parking on the soft shoulder in the redwood chips. Then walk north, away from the stadium, on a path at the far side of the parking lot. Use the crosswalk to cross West, and step into the shady arbor.

2. You may see some duffers as you parallel the fairways at Brookside Golf & Country Club, and the path leads you under the shade of oak trees.

After a half-mile or so, the trail will climb a slight, rocky rise. Then it crests and drops gently down the other side, bringing you to the brook that gives Brookside its name.

3. If the weather is wet, choose any of several log crossings to get to the right side of the stream.

Walk north a little farther, then cross the stream again to the left, just under the 210 Freeway overpass, to get to a sandy beach on the other side. Continue up the canyon, keeping the stream on your right.

4. As you round a bend, stop at the cove where the walls are decorated with urban art. This is Devil’s Gate, so named because of what some see as the profile of Satan in the rocks. Upstream is Devil’s Gate Dam. Across from you is a gated portal and a metal staircase, all part of the flood control system. People go in there, and up there, to explore. I didn’t and wouldn’t. Instead, turn around and head back. If the weather is very rainy, cross the stream again and head back to your starting point.

5. Instead of retracing your steps, and only if there is little or no water in the brook, cross the dry stream bed and aim for a tall, wooden exercise structure said to have been a training facility for utility workers. Walk under this and find a broad pathway that climbs a slight rise and goes under the high overpass.

Continue through more shade provided by oak and pepper trees.

6. Follow the broad path along, keeping the golf course on your right as the pathway descends and joins Rosemont Avenue.
Turn right where Rosemont meets West Washington. Walk to West Drive and find the parking lot.

By the numbers

Distance: 2 miles round trip

Difficulty: 2, on a scale of 1 to 5

Duration: 1 hour

Steps: 4,500

Details: Free street parking. Bicycles and dogs on leashes OK. Take Pasadena Transit bus 52 or 51 (weekends only) to the Rose Bowl.

LONDON — 

A mysterious figure who used a rare narwhal tusk to help subdue a knife-wielding extremist on London Bridge last month has been identified as a civil servant in Britain’s Justice Ministry.

Darryn Frost broke his silence Saturday, telling Britain’s Press Assn. that he and others reacted instinctively when Usman Khan started stabbing people at a prison rehabilitation program at Fishmongers’ Hall next to the bridge Nov. 29.

Frost used the rare narwhal tusk that he grabbed from the wall to help subdue Khan even though the attacker claimed to be about to detonate a suicide vest, which turned out to be a fake device with no explosives. The intervention of Frost and others helped keep the death count to two. He said another man used a chair as a weapon in the struggle.

“When we heard the noise from the floor below, a few of us rushed to the scene,” the 38-year-old said. “I took a narwhal tusk from the wall and used it to defend myself and others from the attacker. Another man was holding the attacker at bay with a wooden chair.”

He said Khan had two large knives, one in each hand, and pointed at his midriff.

“He turned and spoke to me, then indicated he had an explosive device around his waist,” Frost said. “At this point, the man next to me threw his chair at the attacker, who then started running towards him with knives raised above his head.”

The confrontation quickly moved onto London Bridge, where Frost and others — including one man who sprayed Khan with a fire extinguisher — managed to fight the attacker to the ground until police arrived.

The extremist, who had served prison time for earlier terrorism offenses, was shot dead by police moments later after he threatened again to detonate his vest.

There had been much speculation in the British media about the identity of the man who used the narwhal tusk in such a dangerous situation. Video of the event showed him helping to keep the attack from being much more lethal.

He was one of a handful of people who defied danger to help keep Khan from doing even more damage in the crowded hall and on the bridge.

Frost said he was “eternally grateful” to the former prisoners and the members of the public who were taking part in the meeting and ran to help.

“Not only do I want to thank those who confronted the attacker, but also those who put themselves in danger to tend to the injured, relying on us to protect them while they cared for others,” he said.

Frost said he was withholding many details out of respect for the victims and their families and because of the ongoing investigation. He paid tribute to Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt, the two young people stabbed to death when the attack started.

“In reading about their lives and work, I am convinced they represent all that is good in the world, and I will always feel the deep hurt of not being able to save them,” he said.

Frost praised those wounded in the attack and said some had refused treatment until the more severely hurt were cared for.

“That consideration and kindness filled me with hope on that dark day,” he said.

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TORONTO — 

The son of a Russian spy couple who lived clandestine lives in Canada and the United States says he wants a future in Canada after the country’s Supreme Court ruled he can keep his Canadian citizenship.

Alexander Vavilov was born in Toronto, which would typically qualify him for Canadian citizenship. But authorities had ruled that Vavilov didn’t qualify because his parents were part of a Russian spy ring in North America that was broken up by the FBI in 2010.

The high court rejected that finding on Thursday, meaning Vavilov can reside permanently in the country where his parents once lived clandestine lives as deeply embedded spies who were the models for the TV show “The Americans.”

“It’s a huge relief,” Vavilov said at a news conference Friday after flying to Toronto from Russia. ”I am happy to be back in Canada, to be here without this constant doubt in my head, with the ability to finally put down roots and build a life for myself. It’s going to take time. But I’m happy I can move forward with my life and put these problems behind me.”

Vavilov, 25, said he works in finance but said it’s been difficult to find work because companies don’t want to be associated with his espionage story. “It’s been difficult, a lot of anguish and stress,” he said.

He said that, though he flew in from Russia, he’s been bouncing around countries in the Middle East and Asia and it’s “hard to say” where he now resides. Vasilov declined to comment on life in Russia under Vladimir Putin.

The Canadian government argued he wasn’t entitled to citizenship and appealed to the Supreme Court to annul the passport granted to him by a lower court. But the top court upheld that ruling.

Vavilov’s supporters said a son shouldn’t pay for the sins of his parents, while critics contend his claim to be a Canadian by birth was based on fraud since he and his parents lived under stolen identities in the Toronto area, and later Massachusetts, as they collected intelligence for Moscow.

He said he has mended his relationship with his parents.

“I understand their decisions now. They did what they did for patriotic reasons. They wanted to help their country to fight for peace and better understanding between the countries,” he said. ”Although I suffered through the result of all this, but I have a understanding of why they did what they did. In their position maybe they shouldn’t have had children, but that’s not say I’m not happy to be alive and be here.”

Canada, like the U.S., grants citizenship to anyone born within its territory with limited exceptions, such as the children of diplomats. The government argued that Vavilov’s parents were employees or representatives of a foreign government and thus ineligible. Vavilov’s lawyer argued that they were not official representatives and that all that matters in this case is their physical birthplace.

The parents came to Toronto in the 1980s and took the names Donald Heathfield and Tracey Ann Foley. Two sons were born — Timothy in 1990 and Alexander in 1994 — before the family moved to Paris in 1995 and then Cambridge, Mass., in 1999.

In 2010, the FBI arrested a ring of sleeper agents for Russia that it had been following for years in the United States. All 10 pleaded guilty and were returned to Russia in a swap.

Alexander Vavilov said he had no idea his parents were spies and that he’d never been to Russia before. ”I thought the FBI had the wrong house,” he said. “I did not believe it.”

The family’s story became the inspiration for “The Americans.” He said he and his parents have watched the show.

“My parents said they enjoyed watching it because it at least portrayed the sense of patriotism and the sense of connection. It’s a good show,” he said.

The FBI agent who oversaw the arrests said in 2010 that Timothy Vavilov may have found out about his parents’ secret life before they were arrested.

Alexander called that nonsense and said his parents would have never have put them in jeopardy by telling them. The brothers weren’t charged. “He’s over the moon,” he said of his brother.

Their lawyer said no evidence had ever surfaced suggesting the sons knew their parents were Russians or were spies.

Alexander Vavilov wanted to return to Canada for university but was denied. The government ruled Canada would no longer recognize him as Canadian because his parents were “employees or representatives of a foreign government.”

After losing in a lower court, Vavilov won support from the Federal Court of Appeal, which ruled in 2017 that the law applies only to foreign government employees who benefit from diplomatic immunity or privileges. Vavilov was given his citizenship back.

In its decision, the Supreme Court said the citizenship registrar’s decision was unreasonable. Although the registrar knew her interpretation of the provision was novel, she failed to provide a proper rationale, the court said.

Although it involves the same central issue, Timothy Vavilov’s case proceeded separately through the courts and was not directly before the Supreme Court. However, in a decision last year, the Federal Court of Appeal said its 2017 ruling on Alexander Vavilov equally applied to his brother, making him a citizen.

Former FBI agent Richard DesLauriers, who oversaw the arrest of the couple, Andrey Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova, and the other eight sleeper agents criticized the high court’s decision. DesLauriers called it ridiculous.

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