Bail was set at $30,000 for a 35-year-old man living at the OPCC Safe Haven shelter who attacked a man on Thursday, March 21 with a screwdriver.
At 10 am officers of the Santa Monica Police Department went to the OPCC Safe Haven (Safe Haven is a shelter for chronically homeless people on the Westside of Los Angeles), located at 1751 Cloverfield Boulevard, after receiving a report that stated a man who had been involved in an assault the previous day had returned to the center and was now armed with a screwdriver.
The officers wasted no time in detaining the suspect, who is a client at the facility and took the screwdriver from him.
The officers then spoke to the reporting party who told them that the day before this man had surprised the victim by suddenly attacking him from behind.
The suspect had apparently punched this victim many times on his back and arm (it is not known which arm).
The suspect had then run away.
It was subsequently discovered, by reviewing closed circuit television videotape, that this suspect had in fact utilized the same screwdriver that the officers had removed from him in the previous attack.
The injuries suffered during the initial attack were minor.
The officers had enough evidence to arrest this homeless man and he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and a violation of probation.
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.
