A 36-year-old homeless man was arrested and charged with trespass when he was caught in an apartment holding a roll of toilet paper and told officers that he simply needed to go to the bathroom.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were called out to an apartment building in the 1100 block of 22nd Street to investigate a “burglary in progress” on Sunday, March 10, at 9:40 am.
The officers had been informed via radio that the building manager had seen a man attempting to forcibly enter one of the vacant apartments in the complex.
Upon arrival the officers surrounded the building and made announcements requesting the suspect exit.
When no response was received the officers entered the apartment building and after making a sweep of the lower and then upper floors discovered the suspect in the back bedroom of an apartment.
The suspect was holding a roll of toilet paper in his hands.
The apartment manager told the officers that this man might have been involved in other trespass incidents in the complex on previous dates.
The officers questioned the suspect and he told them that he had been riding by the building on his bicycle and needed to go to the bathroom, so he looked for an unoccupied apartment to use the toilet.
Bail was set at $5,500.
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.
