Officer arrest a German tourist who, while intoxicated, ran a stop sign and almost hit a police cruiser, then evaded arrest on Thursday, June 2.
At 11:50 p.m., officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were on patrol in the area of Pico Boulevard and Ocean Way when they saw a Jeep traveling westbound on Pico Boulevard. This Jeep ran the stop sign while traveling at around 30 miles-per-hour, and almost hit the officers in their patrol car.
The Jeep maneuvered around the officers’ car and stopped in front of the Casa del Mar, a luxury beachfront hotel. The driver of the Jeep ran inside the hotel in an obvious effort to escape from the officers. The officers detained the man inside the hotel and deduced that he could well have been under the influence of alcohol.
As the officers were questioning the man he made another attempt to flee, but his efforts to put himself beyond reach of the long arms of the law were futile, and the officers restrained him. The man, a 50-year-old German tourist, refused all of the standard sobriety tests, and would not answer the officers’ questions. The German tourist was put in a police car and given a brief tour of Santa Monica by way of the City’s jail, where he was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and failing to stop for a posted stop sign. His bail was set at $15,000.
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
