Left Photos of Himself : Man Held in Break-In at Costa Mesa School

An 18-year-old man was arrested Thursday on suspicion of burglary and resisting arrest after he allegedly broke into a Costa Mesa elementary school, painted swastikas on a blackboard and snapped photographs of himself, police said.

Daryl Gregory Smith was arrested after children in a second-grade classroom at California Elementary School discovered Polaroid pictures that the suspect had apparently taken of himself during the vandalism attack last weekend.

Police said Smith held a camera at arm’s length and took pictures of his face and the top of his head, with the brightly colored classroom bulletin board in the background.

At the time of his arrest, Smith wore a black leather jacket, a black T-shirt, blue jeans and military boots, Costa Mesa Police Detective Bob Fate said. The suspect wore his strawberry blond hair in a 1/2-inch crew cut and it may have been colored.

Fate said Smith was dressed as if he were a white-supremacist skinhead. But the detective added: “He’s just a kid who is screwed up.”

“He doesn’t claim he is a skinhead,” Fate said. “He just seems to be going along with the program. . . . He may hang out with skinheads, but he is not a hothead, preaching white supremacy.”

Smith tried to flee from the arresting officers, police said.

After the classroom photos were copied and distributed to high schools in the Costa Mesa and Newport Beach area, Newport Beach school officials identified the suspect and alerted police, according to Scott Paulsen, California Elementary School principal.

“In his brilliance, he took three pictures of himself and when he left he did not take them. . . . That’s classic,” Paulsen said.

In addition to painting the swastikas, Smith allegedly took about $40 and ate food in an earthquake preparedness kit. The cash was in small bills and change used to teach students how to count money.

He is being held in Costa Mesa City Jail on $25,000 bail. His arrest record gives no address and lists him as a transient. However, Fate said he had seen Smith before in Costa Mesa.