On Saturday, June 30, at 1:57 a.m. officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were working a routine patrol in the parking area of Lot Number One North (1550 Pacific Coast Highway) when a victim flagged them down and told them that he had just had his car jacked (as in the colloquial “car jacking” which means that someone had taken the car by force, as opposed to the car being raised up on a “jack,” or a car lifting device that is typically found in an auto repair shop) a few moments earlier.
The officers immediately sent out a radio message with this information and other units began checking local thoroughfares as well as the freeways for the vehicle.
The victim then elucidated to the officers what had happened, telling them that he was a performer on the nearby Santa Monica Pier, and after finishing work had been sitting in his vehicle chatting with a friend on his cell phone when suddenly the suspect approached the passenger side window of his vehicle, opened the door, entered the car, and thrust an unknown object into the neck of the victim and told him to drive.
Thinking that the unknown object was a gun, the victim said that he had told the suspect that he was bereft of money as he began to follow the suspect’s instruction to drive. The victim said that he had managed to leap out of the vehicle as it was moving, and run to safety.
The suspect had slid over into the driver’s seat and driven off in the vehicle, exiting through the north exit and onto the eastbound lanes of the 10 Freeway.
Other officers located the vehicle being driven eastbound on the 10 Freeway and conducted a felony traffic stop on the 10 Freeway at La Brea Avenue. The suspect was detained and the victim subsequently identified him.
The officers searched the vehicle but did not find a gun.
The suspect, a male resident of Barstow, California was charged with carjacking, kidnapping, and a violation of parole. Bail was not given.
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.
