A 30-year-old homeless man was arrested on Thursday, Feb. 14 after making a prank 911 call saying that a man had been stabbed and was lying in some bushes near a 7-11 Convenience Store.
At 11:17 pm officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were called out to the 7-11 at 630 Wilshire Boulevard after they had received a report of the supposed stabbing.
The caller also said that he (the caller) was a parolee at large.
The caller apparently sounded intoxicated on the phone.
When the officers arrived they saw the payphone from where the 911 call had originated and noticed that the receiver was hanging loose.
They also noticed a man standing a few feet away.
What they didn’t notice was a stabbing victim lying in the bushes, because this person appeared not to exist.
There were no other people present near the convenience store.
The officers stared at this man standing near the phone and when the man detected that they were looking at him he began to walk away at a brisk tempo.
The officers deduced that the call had been a prank, and that this man was somehow involved.
The officers subsequently attempted to detain this man and ordered him to stop.
This man looked at the officers and turned and continued to walk away.
The officers again asked him to stop and this time the man turned towards them and started yelling that he did not have to stop.
As one of the officers caught up with this man he turned once again and started yelling at the officer.
Being mindful that a knife had been mentioned by the person who had made the 911 call, the officers ordered the man to turn around so that they could search him.
As the officers began the search, the man tensed up and attempted to turn towards the officer. Other officers immediately assisted in taking the man down to the ground and he was placed into handcuffs.
The officers checked the area again and confirmed that there was no stabbing victim in the bushes, no crime scene, and no other witnesses.
The officers arrested this man and he was charged with resisting officers.
Bail was set at $10,000.
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.
