On Sunday, April 24, at 1:25 a.m. officers responded to Cope D’Oro, a restaurant and bar that is particularly noted for it’s large selection of exotic cocktails, and located at 217 Broadway, in order to investigate two men who had apparently been “bothering” females in front of the location.
When the officers arrived, they spoke with security at Cope D’Oro, who told them that a pair of men had been trying to gain entry to the business, and when they were refused they had been harassing women who were entering the bar. They were both described as being heavily intoxicated. One of the security officers told the police officers that one of these men had also grabbed the buttocks of a woman who had passed by the business.
The officers went in search of these intoxicated men and found them further east on Broadway. The officers looked at this pair of men, and concluded very quickly that they were so drunk that they were incapable of looking after themselves. The officers began to arrest them, and as they were doing so, one of these men struggled and attempted to escape. The officers were able to overpower this man, and a short time later the officers found the woman who had had her buttocks grabbed, and she was able to identify the man who had had a hand in this groping incident. She stated that she wanted him to be prosecuted for this assault. This 25-year-old man was thus charged with sexual assault, resisting arrest, and public intoxication with bail set at $20,000. His 28-year-old accomplice was charged with public intoxication, and his bail was set at $250.
Editor’s Note: These reports are part of a regular police coverage series entitled “Alert Police Blotter” (APB), which injects some minor editorial into certain police activities in Santa Monica. Not all of the Mirror’s coverage of incidents involving police are portrayed in this manner. More serious crimes and police-related activities are regularly reported without editorial in the pages of the Santa Monica Mirror and its website, smmirror.com.
