A 53-year-old resident at transitional housing shelter Turning Point in Santa Monica was arrested on Thursday, Oct. 11 after officers responded to threats he was making and found him in possession of a switchblade knife.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department hurried to the housing shelter at 1447 16th Street at 5:56 p.m. after they had received a report about a man who had threatened to retrieve a gun from his vehicle and shoot someone.
When the officers arrived they found the suspect sitting with a Turning Point employee inside the facility.
The officers asked him about the gun threat and he denied any knowledge of this threat, and added that he did not possess a gun.
The officers asked him if they could search his vehicle, which he agreed to. When the officers began to search the vehicle, the man confessed he did in fact have a .22 rifle located behind the passenger seat of the truck.
The officers continued to search the vehicle and found a spring-loaded knife under the seat, as well as the gun that was indeed behind the passenger seat just as this man had told them.
The officers did some checking and found that the gun was lawfully owned, and also that there were not any specific victims to any threats.
The man had been angry about the living conditions at Turning Point and was attempting to convey these thoughts to anyone who would listen (but in a clumsy and perceivably threatening manner).
The officers arrested this Santa Monica resident and he was charged with possession of a switchblade knife. Bail was set at $500.
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.
