A Santa Monica man was arrested on Friday, Jan. 25, but later released after his girlfriend changed her story after initially telling police he had assaulted her during an argument.
At 4:40 p.m. officers of the Santa Monica Police Department went to the area of Ocean Avenue and Washington Street after they received a report of a man and a woman who appeared to be fighting over the possession of a baby stroller.
When the officers arrived they spoke with the people involved, namely a couple who had been in a dating relationship and who, through the course of this experience, had produced a child together.
The officers discovered that they had, on this day, become embroiled in an argument as they walked with the child in a stroller.
During the course of this argument they began to play a tug-of-war with the stroller (containing their offspring) in a dispute over who was going to possess the child, and the girlfriend alleged that the boyfriend had scratched her neck as he pushed her away.
The officers arrested the boyfriend and charged him with domestic violence and a probation violation, but later that evening the girlfriend was spoken to by the police again, and this time she changed her story, confirming an alternative version that had been given to the officers by a witness.
The officers released the boyfriend, but this case continues while a charge of reporting a false crime to a peace officer by the victim is considered.
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.
