A 39-year-old Santa Monica man was arrested on Thursday, April 9, after caught pushing a shopping car full of recyclables and then lying to police about his identity.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department, who were on routine patrol in the area of Chelsea Ave. and Wilshire Blvd., saw a man at 8:10 am who was pushing a shopping car loaded with recyclables.
The officers immediately realized that this act constituted the crime of misappropriation of property, so they stopped the suspect in order to investigate.
The officers asked the suspect what his name was, to which he replied that he was Mauricio Gonzalez, and that he was born on July 21, 1975.
The officers arrested the man for the aforementioned crime.
When they arrived at the police station the man was fingerprinted and it was then that the officers discovered that the man was not Mauricio Gonzalez, born on July 21, 1975, but was in fact someone else, born on another date.
It was also discovered that this man had a felony warrant from the Los Angeles Police Department in effect.
This Santa Monica resident was charged with misappropriation of property and providing false information to the police. Bail was set at $35,000.
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.
