A 27-year-old Van Nuys resident was arrested in Santa Monica on Monday, April 28 after crashing his truck into a pole and then being found in possession of methamphetamine.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were called out to the 800 block of Santa Monica Boulevard at 5 pm on this day in order to investigate a truck that had collided with a pole where the driver had left the scene.
As the officers were investigating, a man approached them and confessed to them that he was the driver of the vehicle.
He told them that he had been driving along the road when he decided to play with his pet bird.
The bird had been in a cage that was placed on the passenger seat of the vehicle.
The driver said that because he had been playing with the bird he had become distracted and his vehicle had left the road and collided with the city owned pole.
The officers, however, considered this story to be a flight of fancy because during a search of the vehicle they had discovered two small plastic bags containing methamphetamine, a glass smoking pipe with which to ingest the methamphetamine, and in the back of the truck construction and electronic equipment that they suspected as having been stolen.
The officers arrested this man and he was charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of suspected stolen goods.
Bail was set at $20,000. The bird in the cage was examined and found to be uninjured and in good health. The bird was transported to the Santa Monica Animal Shelter.
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.
