A dramatic car chase involving two men who robbed an AT&T store on Saturday, May 9, ended in the arrest of one suspect while the other is still at large.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were alerted to a theft incident at 11:35 pm that had just occurred in the AT&T store, located at 808 Wilshire Boulevard.
The officers were told that moments earlier two suspects had entered the store and had suddenly snatched four smart phones from a display shelf before running out of the store.
Witnesses had followed this pair of purloiners and had seen them jump into a getaway car and sped off.
The officers were given a description of this vehicle as well as the direction in which they had been headed.
Shortly afterwards an officer on patrol spotted the car getting onto the westbound I-10 freeway and gave chase.
The officer followed this car onto the northbound Pacific Coast Highway and when the suspects realized that the officer was getting close to them they accelerated to a very high speed and attempted to lose the officer by running a red light next to the California Incline.
The driver of the getaway car then suddenly veered left onto the southbound lanes of the Pacific Coast Highway and even had to swerve dangerously onto the driveways of some residences on the west side of the road in order to avoid hitting southbound traffic.
When this driver reached the 900 block of Pacific Coast Highway he screeched into a public parking lot and accelerated at high speed through the parking lot.
The officer chased this vehicle to the edge of the sand whereupon the car drove onto the sand and became stuck.
Both of these suspected phone thieves then leapt out of the vehicle and ran in separate directions with one of them running across the Pacific Coast Highway where he was detained by officers near the Montana Avenue stairs after a short foot pursuit.
The other suspect escaped and is still being sought by police.
The suspect who was caught was arrested and later charged with grand theft and evading the police. Bail for this 19-year-old Hawthorne resident was set at $56,000.
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.
