Bail was set at $20,000 on Monday, April 28 for a Los Angeles man who became aggressive while receiving a parking ticket.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department went to the 2200 block of Arizona Avenue at 3pm on this day in order to assist a Traffic Service Officer (TSO) who had activated his emergency signal.
Upon arrival the officers spoke with the TSO who told them that he had asked the driver to move his vehicle from a preferential parking space that he had occupied without the benefit of the required placard that would have made such an act permissible.
The driver had responded, the TSO alleged, by saying that he was waiting for a friend who was at St. John’s Hospital.
He said, according to the TSO, that he would move when the friend arrived.
The driver then, according to the TSO, stepped out of the vehicle and stood in front of the rear of the vehicle in order to block the license plate from being seen by the TSO.
The TSO repeated his requests many times that the driver move the vehicle and after the driver refused, the TSO stepped from the three-wheeled scooter that he was driving and began to write the parking ticket.
The driver of the vehicle stood between the TSO and the vehicle and pushed the TSO out of the way.
He pushed the TSO several more times with his shoulder and arm until the TSO retreated back to his scooter and activated his emergency button in order to summon the police.
After the initial investigation was completed, Officers arrested the driver, aged 27, and from Los Angeles, for battery on code enforcement officer during the performance of his duties.
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.
