A 23-year-old LA man was arrested Wednesday, June 19 after being caught vandalizing a Santa Monica parking garage wall with two cans of black spray paint.
At 1:50 pm officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were called, via their radios, to attend to a witness who was chasing a suspect westbound from Neilson Way and Strand Street.
The suspect had been reported as having been involved in some vandalism.
The suspect was subsequently detained in Parking Lot Number Four South at the beach.
The officers spoke with the witness and he told them he worked at a business located in the 2400 block of Main Street and had just returned to work.
As he did so he happened upon the suspect who at that time had been standing in the parking garage and staring at a wall.
The witness, his curiosity piqued by this circumstance, approached this suspect in order to discover the reason behind his apparent interest in the wall.
When the suspect noticed that the witness was approaching he walked away.
At this point the witness discovered the intrigue that the wall held for this suspect. He had apparently been admiring his graffiti handiwork that he had presumably just completed.
The witness turned and confronted the suspect at which point the suspect ran off, with the witness in hot pursuit.
The witness chased the suspect to the intersection of Neilson Way and Strand Street whereupon a Downtown Service Officer, who had been directing traffic, reported the situation.
The suspect was thus detained shortly afterwards.
The officers checked the route that the suspect had taken during his escape attempt, and discovered a bag containing two cans of black spray paint.
This Los Angeles resident was arrested under a citizen’s arrest and charged with vandalism.
Bail was set at $500.
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.
