A homeless couple’s argument over a possible pregnancy escalated into a fight that ended with the arrest of the 22-year-old man in the relationship on Monday, Nov. 10.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were called out to the 2500 block of Ocean Front Walk at 8:25 am on this day in order to investigate the report of a fight near the beach restrooms.
The officers, whilst en route to the scene, were informed by dispatch that a man and a woman had been involved in a loud argument with the man allegedly hitting the woman in the head.
Upon arrival the officers separated the couple and initiated separate interviews to establish what had been going on.
The officers noticed the woman’s forehead was cut and her left eye was swollen shut.
The officers asked the woman how she came to have these injuries. She claimed she had been in a bicycle accident three days prior. The woman declined to accept any medical attention.
The woman added that she had been “living” with the man for about five years in various homeless shelters in the Santa Monica area.
The officers then learned that the woman had, at about 8 am that morning, started arguing with the man about a variety of topics, including a possible state of pregnancy and other relationship issues.
The woman told the officers that when the man had turned to walk away from her she had grabbed him from behind in order to stop him from leaving.
The man, in response, had then turned and kicked the woman on the leg.
He had then grabbed her arms and thrown her to the ground.
The man had refused to speak with the officers at the scene, but after he had been arrested the man (now the suspect) told the officers that the woman was hormonal and that had been the cause of the argument.
He then said that he had been startled when the woman had grabbed him from behind and that had caused him to become startled.
Then he confessed to “instinctively” kicking her and throwing her down to the ground.
This homeless man was charged with domestic violence and 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.
