On Wednesday, Dec. 12, at 12:05 p.m. officers of the Santa Monica Police Department went to the 500 block of Adelaide Street regarding an automobile burglary that had been reported.
When the officers arrived they met the victim, a woman, who told them that she had parked her vehicle in the 500 block of Adelaide Street and exited the vehicle in order to run up some stairs to a building.
When she got to the top of the stairs she told the officers that she had then decided to run back down the stairs, but she had inadvertently left her keys and a water bottle at the top of the stairs.
The woman, upon realizing her absent mindedness, began to run back up the stairs, but a witness told her that a man had taken her keys and entered her vehicle.
When the woman arrived back at the top of the stairs she discovered her keys lying in a different place.
When she returned to her vehicle she found that $400 was missing.
The witness told the woman that the man who took her keys had been the same person who had parked behind her as she had arrived.
The officers were provided with the license plate number but were not able to locate the vehicle at the time of the initial investigation.
The next day (December 13) investigators identified the suspect, and officers went to his residence in Santa Monica and arrested him.
The officers searched this man’s vehicle and discovered evidence relating to the burglary.
This 19-year-old resident of Santa Monica was charged with burglary and a violation of probation. 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.
