Santa Monica police arrested a homeless woman on Saturday, Oct. 18 after this female suspect consumed a meal at a local restaurant then refused to pay.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were called out to an unspecified restaurant at Santa Monica Place mall on 5:48 pm on this day to investigate.
When the officers arrived they spoke with an employee of the restaurant who told them the suspect had entered the establishment and ordered some food.
The suspect had then consumed the food and when it came time to pay for said meal, the suspect had arisen from her seat and left the restaurant without paying for the meal.
The security guards at Santa Monica Place had then followed the suspect and detained her a short distance away.
The officers spoke with the suspect and asked her why she had not paid for the meal.
The suspect told the officers that she didn’t have any money with which to pay for the meal, so the officers asked this homeless woman why, apart from being hungry, she had ordered the meal in the first place if she did not have the funds with which to cover the bill.
The woman said that she didn’t have to pay, period.
The officers arrested the woman, aged 67, and she was charged with defrauding an innkeeper. Bail was set at $500.
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.
