On Saturday, June 9, at 11:34 p.m. officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were on routine foot patrol on the area of the Third Street Promenade when they were asked by the Santa Monica Place security agents to assist them with a man who had been detained by the security agents on the third floor of the mall.
When the officers arrived they saw that the security agents were struggling with this man on the ground. The man was fighting the agents with the intention of escaping.
The officers joined in the struggle but this man continued to resist so the officers deployed their handcuffs, and handcuffed the man.
The officers then put the man into the back of a police vehicle and began to investigate.
The officers learned that this man had entered the Sonoma Wine Garden and visited the men’s bathroom whereupon he had ripped the metal toilet seat ring holder off the wall.
When the manager of the Sonoma Wine Garden followed the man outside and asked him about this incident the man punched the manager in the face and head several times, knocking him to the ground.
The man then ran away, but security agents confronted him, at which point this man attempted to strike one of them and then punched another one in the face before the security agents tackled him to the ground and wrestled with him until the police officers arrived.
This 20-year-old man, who refused to volunteer to the police his residence information, was charged with battery, resisting officers, and vandalism.
His 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.
