Undercover Santa Monica Police Department officers on the 200 block of Broadway arrested a 50-year-old man on Sept. 11 after they watched him pull out a pair of pliers, cut a bike chain, then try to flee the scene on the stolen bike.
The officers were in the area at 3:30 p.m. where there were a large number of bicycles locked to a bike railing. As the officers watched they observed a man loiter in the area.
The man kept looking around in all directions, not dissimilar to the way that a person would look if they were waiting for someone to arrive, for example at an airport.
This man suddenly turned towards the bicycles and removed what the officers deemed was a set of pliers of bolt cutters from his front pants pocket.
The officers watched as this man then bent down and cut a cable lock attached to a bicycle, place the cutting tool back into his pocket, mount the cycle, and begin to ride away westbound on Broadway.
The undercover officers, with assistance from nearby uniformed personnel, wasted no time in apprehending this apparent bicycle thief. The officers searched this man and discovered the pliers in his pocket.
This Los Angeles resident was arrested and he was later charged with possession of burglary tools and a violation of parole.
The officers were able to eventually locate the rightful owner of the bicycle who, after identifying the conveyance at the police station, had it returned to him.
The apparent thief was not granted parole.
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.
