A 42-year-old homeless man was arrested on Sunday, Oct. 28, after attacking a homeless woman who had splashed water at him from a water bottle after he spilled water on her bedding.
At 8:14 p.m. officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were called out to the 500 block of Olympic Boulevard in order to investigate a report of a woman who had claimed that she had been assaulted at that location several hours earlier.
When the officers arrived they spoke with the victim and immediately noticed that she was homeless, and also that she displayed several bruises and scratches around her face and neck.
The victim told the officers that she had been sleeping on the sidewalk with a number of other people (outside the OPCC) when they were awoken at 12:30 a.m. by the suspect, a man, who was asking them for some food.
The victim told another person who had been sleeping there to give the suspect some food, as it was her food in the first place.
The suspect asked if they had any meat, and the victim stated that they did not have any. The suspect then ordered the victim to be quiet and kicked over a water bottle that was next to the victim, causing it to spill on her bedding and dampen it.
The victim then threw this water bottle into the street and some of the water splashed onto the suspect who responded by attacking the victim, hitting her about her head and body.
The suspect then grabbed the victim and forced her to the ground and for several seconds choked her, but the victim resisted and the suspect then scratched the victim on her throat and face.
The suspect then left the scene. Officers went off and began to look for this suspect and they found him in the 1600 block of Seventh Street.
The victim and the other witnesses at the scene subsequently positively identified this homeless man and he was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon and a violation of parole. Bail was not granted.
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.
