On Wednesday, Feb. 15, at 2:17 a.m. officers of the Santa Monica Police department were on routine patrol in the 200 block of Santa Monica Boulevard when they chanced upon a gentleman who was riding a bicycle, in the hours of darkness, without a headlight and in the 1400 block of Alley Two.
The officers, sensing something was amiss, stopped this man, and asked him to dismount his cycle. As the man was dismounting the bicycle the officers saw an unknown, but suspicious object wrapped in black electrical tape, partially concealed in the man’s waistband.
Suspecting that this object may be a weapon of some kind, the officers removed it for examination.
They found it to be a pair of wire cutters.
The officers became suspicious as the man did not appear to be a tradesman, was riding a woman’s bicycle, and it was past 2 a.m., and the man had no good reason for being in the area.
The officers subsequently discovered he was also being dishonest with them about his true identity, so they arrested him and took him off to jail, where this homeless 34-year-old was charged with possession of burglary tools, providing false information, riding without a bicycle headlight, probation violation, and three outstanding warrants. His bail was set at $70,561.
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.
