On Sunday, Jan. 1 at 12:04 a.m. officers of the Santa Monica Police Department responded to the Copa D’Oro bar at 217 Broadway to investigate a fight.
When the officers arrived they saw a victim lying on the ground bleeding profusely from a head wound.
Some witnesses directed the officers towards a suspect who was subsequently detained in the 1400 block of Ocean Ave.
From their initial investigation, the officers learned that earlier in the evening the victim had been involved in a verbal altercation with the suspect inside the bar, and as a result they had both been ejected just around the time that other revelers were welcoming in the New Year.
Once they were outside the bar, witnesses told the officers that the verbal conflict continued, and that during the course of this heated discussion, the suspect had struck the victim several times about the head and face before running towards Ocean Avenue.
The victim was taken to a local hospital where he was treated for lacerations to his face and head, and possibly a fractured ankle.
The officers arrested a 24-year-old Camarillo resident (a town in Ventura County, CA, that is known, for among other things, for being the location of a very large State Mental Hospital, until it closed in 1997) and he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and a violation of parole. He was not granted bail.
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.
