A 23-year-old homeless man was arrested Wednesday, Dec. 11 after grabbing at a woman’s crotch in Palisades Park then exposing his genitals a short time later in another section of the park.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were requested to go to the 1400 block of Ocean Avenue at 4 pm on this day in order to investigate a sexual battery case.
Upon arrival the officers spoke with the female victim, who told them that she had been walking westbound on the Broadway Avenue stairs that connect Palisades Park with the beach, when a man who had also been walking westbound passed her and without any warning grabbed her in her crotch area.
As the officers were talking with this victim, they were notified by radio that a man was exposing his penis in the area of Palisades Park and Montana Avenue.
The officers went to that location and spotted the man who had allegedly been exposing his penis.
The officers then took this man into custody.
The officers noticed that the man that they had just taken into custody matched the description of the crotch grabbing man from the earlier report.
The officers then arranged for the victim from that case to the second location whereupon she positively identified the suspect as being the same man who had grabbed her crotch.
The officers arrested this man and he was charged with sexual battery and indecent exposure. Bail was set at $20,000.
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.
