On Sunday, Nov. 13, at 4:10 p.m. officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were on foot patrol on the Santa Monica Pier when a citizen approached them and told them she had lost her cell phone somewhere on the pier. She said she had used another cell phone to call her number in order to see if someone had picked it up. She said that a man had answered the phone, but he refused to speak.
The next thing that she received was a text from her own phone, sent by the man who had answered it, telling her that she could get he phone back by paying him $100. The officers told her to tell the man she was going to pay, and meet him outside of Bubba Gump’s restaurant so that they could apprehend him. At 6:30 p.m. the officers saw a suspect approach the victim, and as the approached him, he pulled the phone out of his pocket and handed it back to the victim.
The officers arrested this man and after questioning him. They discovered that his friend had taken the phone, and it was his job to sell it back to the victim. This 21-year-old man was taken off to jail where he was charged with receiving stolen property, possession of marijuana, and a pair of outstanding warrants. Bail was set at $23,834.
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.
