Bail was set at $5,000 on Saturday, Oct. 5 for a homeless man who threatened to burn down the Third Street Promenade Apple Store using gasoline, and then telling employees he was going to “blow the store up” after they told him to leave the store.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department, who were part of the Third Street Bicycle Patrol, cycled to the Apple Store at 5:56 pm, located at 1453 Third Street Promenade, in order to investigate a case of trespass.
When the officers arrived they discovered the suspect had left the store, however they soon found him in the 200 block of Broadway.
The store manager told the officers that this man had visited the store on four separate occasions that day and on each occasion he had caused trouble.
Every time he had done this he had been asked to leave and had done so.
On this last visit though, the man had yelled that he intended to burn the Apple Store down to the ground using gasoline, and when staff asked him to leave he informed them that he was going to “blow the store up.”
The officers arrested this man and he was charged with interfering with a business while trespassing.
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.