A 45-year-old man was arrested on Saturday, Jan. 17, after erratic behavior on a bicycle caught the attention of police who then found the man in possession of a stolen drivers’ license as well as a stolen credit card.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department spotted a cyclist at 5 pm who was riding his bicycle erratically and swerving in and out of traffic southbound in the northbound lanes on Third Street.
The officers decided to stop this cyclist after he almost collided with a pedestrian who had been entering Third Street from the sidewalk.
The officers spoke with this man who gave them a name and an age. The officers asked the individual if he could provide them with a form of official identification to which he produced an EBT card.
These “food stamp” cards do not include any photographic images of the designated recipient and was therefore inadequate in proving this man’s true identity.
As the man had removed the EBT card from his wallet however, the officers noticed that he had performed the act in a stealthy and secretive manner, almost as if he was concealing items in his wallet that he did not want the police to see.
The officers, their intrigue stimulated by this man’s behavior, asked the man if they could take a look inside the wallet, but the man became belligerent and attempted to avoid the officers’ demands by way of physically resisting the officers.
The officers then arrested the man for this physical activity towards them and then the officers searched the man.
The man was found to be in possession of a stolen drivers’ license as well as a stolen credit card.
This 45-year-old man was charged with misappropriation of property in addition to the vehicle code violation for riding his bicycle against traffic. Bail was set at $10,000.
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.
