On Saturday, April 23, at 2:04 a.m. officers went to the Ocean View Hotel, located at 1447 Ocean Avenue, in response to a possible burglary that may have occurred. When they arrived, the officers spoke with the hotel security person who told them that at approximately 1:35 a.m. a man and a woman had entered the hotel lobby and taken the elevators to the parking garage underneath the hotel. The security person had followed them down because he must have thought they looked suspicious.
When he arrived at the parking garage he saw the man looking into the window of a vehicle. He asked them what they were doing, and they said that they were looking for recyclables from the trashcans. The story was somewhat incongruous with their behavior, so the security person decided that he had better put them under citizen’s arrest for trespassing. That’s when the police were summoned.
The officers investigated the scene and concluded that no cars had been broken into, but when they searched this pair of possible ecologists they found some tools upon the man that could be used for breaking into a vehicle, and some drug paraphernalia upon the woman. They were both charged with trespassing and prowling, and the man, aged 47, was also charged with possession of burglary tools and a probation violation. Not to be outdone, the woman, aged 20, had additional charges of possession of drug paraphernalia, as well as a probation violation. Their bail was set at $10,000 each.
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.
