Santa Monica police arrested a bike riding Inglewood man on a car radio theft spree on Thursday, Nov. 24.
At 4:17 am an officer of the Santa Monica Police Department, who was on patrol in the eastern part of Santa Monica, spotted a suspicious looking character violating a municipal code by riding his bicycle on the sidewalk.
The officer followed this man for a few blocks and in doing so noticed that the man was wearing gloves, carrying a plastic bag, and also had a large duffel bag hanging from the handlebars of the bicycle.
The officer watched as this man appeared to look through the windows of several parked vehicles as he rode his bicycle.
At one point it seemed that the man noticed that the officer was following him and that he started to cycle faster after that.
The man made several sudden turns as he crossed the city line into West Los Angeles; the officer had at that time turned on his emergency lights and activated his police siren in order to initiate a traffic stop of the man and his bicycle.
The man had then ditched his bicycle and fled on foot in the 1700 block of South Carmelina Ave. but the officer gave chase and caught and detained the man after a foot pursuit of about 50 feet.
Other officers then arrived on the scene and the suspect was handcuffed.
The officers looked inside the duffel bag and discovered that it contained several car radios and burglary tools.
This 59-year-old resident of Inglewood was taken off to jail and later charged with for burglary, possession of burglary tools, possession of stolen property, operating his bicycle without a light during hours of darkness, riding on the sidewalk, and resisting arrest. Bail was set at $20,000.
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.
