Santa Monica police arrested three armed robbery suspects on Saturday, Aug. 16 shortly after they stole about $120 from a parking lot attendant and tried to flee on the 10 Freeway.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department, who were working a foot patrol in the downtown area at 8:20 pm on this day, heard a radio call about an armed robbery that had just happened in the area of Fourth Street and Broadway, so they rushed to the scene in order to investigate.
Upon arrival the officers spoke with the victim who was an area parking lot attendant.
The parking lot attendant told the officers that she had been sitting inside her parking lot booth when two men wearing a hoodie and dark sunglasses had approached her.
She said that one of these hooded men had produced a silver handgun and had pointed it at her.
The man, she added, had then told her to hand over all of the money that she possessed.
The victim said that she had froze in a state of fear and that the man had taken advantage of the freezing and reached into the cash drawer and removed all the money, which amounted to about $120.
The second suspect had then grabbed the victim’s cellphone, which had been sitting on the counter.
Both of these men had then ran north on Fourth Street and into the distance, and at that point the victim unfroze and began yelling for someone to call the police.
The victim managed to give the attending officers descriptions of the suspects and these descriptions were subsequently broadcast over the police radio system in order to alert other officers.
A witness reported that he had seen two men enter a dark colored vehicle on Arizona Avenue and another officer in the area of the 10 Freeway spotted a vehicle matching the description and stopped the car in order to search the vehicle.
The officers discovered that there were three men in this vehicle and that they possessed two handguns, methamphetamine, the victim’s cellphone, and clothing matching the description of the clothes that the suspects who committed the robbery had been wearing.
These three men were arrested and taken off to jail where they were charged with robbery, carrying a loaded firearm, carrying a concealed firearm, possession of a controlled substance, and conspiracy to commit a crime.
The first suspect, aged 26, and from Glendale was denied bail, while the second suspect aged 27 and from Valley Village received bail of $140,000 and the third suspect, aged 21, and from Los Angeles was granted bail of $140,000.
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.
