On Thursday, Dec. 15, at 5:45 a.m. officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were on patrol in the area of Fourth Street and Colorado Avenue when a taxi driver hailed them. The officers stopped and the taxi driver told them about the unusual experience he was having with a passenger. Apparently, the taxi driver had picked up a man at the UCLA Medical Center in Westwood and had driven him to Santa Monica per the man’s request. Upon arrival in Santa Monica, the taxi driver told the man the fare was $30, at which point the man told the taxi driver he wasn’t going to pay the bill and demanded that the taxi driver take him straight to jail.
The man was still sitting in that back of the cab as this conversation between the taxi driver and the officers was taking place. The officers then spoke with the man who informed them that he was bereft of any money with which to pay the fare, that wanted to go to jail, and would they kindly take him there. The officers obliged and this 22-year-old homeless man was taken off to jail in the back of a police car and charged defrauding an innkeeper. The bail for this freeloader was $26,500. Evidently, much more than the cab fare.
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.
