Bail was set at $61,000 for a Santa Monica man on Saturday, Aug. 8, after stealing a car wheel and tire.
At 5:15 am officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were called out to the 1400 block of Marguerita Ave. in order to investigate some unspecified trouble.
When the officers arrived they discovered a witness yelling at the residence in an apparent attempt to awaken the victim in this case.
The witness told the officers that a man had stolen a car wheel and tire from the victim and that the man had been driving a gray colored sedan.
The officers looked up the street at that moment and lo and behold spotted a vehicle matching the description of the suspect’s car parked in the middle of a nearby intersection.
The officers jumped into their police vehicle and conducted a traffic stop on the suspect car.
The officers spoke with the driver of the suspect vehicle and immediately noticed that his hands were dirty and that there were wheel lug bolts on the passenger seat of the suspect vehicle.
The officers then looked inside the suspect vehicle trunk and spotted emblems from the victim’s car in the trunk.
The officers asked this suspect why his hands were dirty and he said that he had been caused to “adjust his battery” after leaving his girlfriend’s home.
The officers then followed up with a visit to the suspect’s residence where they discovered the stolen wheel and tire bolted to the suspect’s second vehicle.
This 23-year-old Santa Monica man was arrested and charged with grand theft.
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.
