Old-fashioned Battery
Tuesday, August 12 at 10:01 a.m. – 1300 block of Third Street Promenade – Officers responded on a call of Battery Just Occurred. When they arrived, they spoke to a security guard, who said that a man punched him several times after the guard asked the man to leave a food court area for causing a disturbance; the man then fled. The officers drove the guard around the area and they located the man, whom they placed under a citizen’s arrest (the crime having been committed outside the officers’ observation) for assault and battery. [Penal Code section 242 defines battery as “any willful and unlawful use of force or violence upon the person of another.”]
Incidentally, after the arrest, officers discovered that the man, a San Francisco resident, was in possession of drug paraphernalia and a controlled substance, so he was booked on those charges as well.
A Different Kind of Battery
Saturday, August 9 at 12:30 p.m. –3000 block of Airport Avenue – Officers responded to Barker Hangar regarding a man who was being detained for battery by employees at the Barneys New York warehouse sale. Officers were told that the man – a Santa Monica resident on temporary employment at the Hangar for the sale – had shown up for work intoxicated. When asked to leave by loss prevention agents, he spat on one of them. SMPD officers accepted the agent’s citizen’s arrest and booked the man for battery . . . and for public intoxication.
Beyond Battery
Sunday, August 10 at 12:50 a.m. – 700 block of Broadway – Officers responded on a call of Assault Just Occurred. Upon arrival, they interviewed the victim who said that a man and a woman had attacked him, knocked him to the ground, and punched and kicked him in the body and head [why?]; witnesses intervened and broke it up. Officers arrested the suspects, both transients, and booked them for assault with a deadly weapon [kicking] . . . and for public intoxication.
Something Different
Monday, August 11 at 6:45 a.m. – 1700 block of Idaho Avenue (back alley) – Officers responded on a call of a man removing recyclables from trashcans. Officers located the man, but did not see him removing any recyclables. [Apparently, the reporting citizen was unavailable for a citizen’s arrest.] However, the man, a transient, was in possession of a shopping cart belonging to a local store, and so he was arrested for “misappropriation of lost property” . . . and on three outstanding warrants. [You see, Penal Code section 485 provides that a person “who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use … without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft.”]
