Bail was set at $25,000 for a 34-year-old homeless man on Friday, Aug. 9 after he became aggressive towards a California Highway Patrol officer who was writing a citation to a motorist at a Santa Monica off-ramp.
At 9:16 pm officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were flagged down by a CHP officer who had detained a man near the I-10 Freeway off ramp at 20th Street.
The CHP officer told the officers that he had just initiated a traffic stop on the eastbound off-ramp when he encountered a man standing in the number one left hand turn lane on the off-ramp.
The man was carrying a sign, panhandling, and yelling at drivers as they exited the freeway.
The CHP officer told the officers that, while preparing the citation for the offender that he had stopped, this man approached him on 20th Street and began to yell and curse at him.
The CHP officer said that he had told this man to step back several times but the man had ignored him and persisted with the harassment.
The CHP officer, fearing for his safety, decided to handcuff this man, but the man continued to be aggressive and non-compliant.
The SMPD officers recognized this man from a similar prior incident and arrested him.
This man was charged with resisting and obstructing officers, soliciting on a freeway off-ramp, and prohibited soliciting of a vehicle on the roadway.
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.
