Santa Monica police arrested a Palos Verdes man on Tuesday, Feb. 24, after the South Bay suspect challenged a traffic services officer to a fight after receiving a parking ticket.
At 3:45 pm a Santa Monica Traffic Services Officer was in the process of issuing a citation to an unattended vehicle in Parking Structure 10, located at 1125 Third Street, when the owner of the vehicle returned.
The owner of the vehicle was evidently indignant at the sight of an officer writing the ticket and expressed his deep displeasure by yelling derogatory statements and inviting the officer to engage him in physical combat.
The officer did not accept the challenge to a fight or react to the verbal abuse, but instead left the scene in his department issued buggy.
The suspect then got into his vehicle and proceeded to use it to inhibit the forward motion of the officer, effectively blocking the officer’s vehicle right of passage.
The suspect then threatened to run the officer over. At that time officers from the Santa Monica Police Department arrived and began to calm things down while they interviewed the substantial number of witnesses who had been looking on.
Police then arrested the vehicle owner and later charged him with challenging to fight in public as well as driving with a suspended license.
Bail for the 32-year-old man 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.
