A 38-year-old Venice resident was arrested on Wednesday, Nov. 20 after harassing customers and a cashier at a Mobil Gas Station in Santa Monica.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were requested to respond to the report of a fight that was reported to be in progress at 10 pm on this day at the gas station at 731 Santa Monica Boulevard.
Upon arrival the officers discovered a man who was holding his head in his hands recovering from the effects of pepper spray.
An employee of the gas station had administered the spray.
The officers spoke with a witness who said that the pepper sprayed man had been in the gas station and was asking the cashier and any patrons who entered the gas station the question, “Do you know who I am?”
None of the people to whom the question was posed knew the answer.
The witness then said the man kept repeating the same question over and over again, and at one point he walked onto the forecourt and sat in the back seat of a vehicle that had stopped for gas.
The gas station employee had escorted the man from the vehicle and away from the premises.
The subject returned moments later and again began to harass patrons of the gas station.
An employee then attempted to stop this unknown man to which the unknown man punched the employee.
It was then that the employee deployed the pepper spray.
This technique seemed to instill an air of some relative serenity in the unknown man until the arrival of the police officers.
The officers examined the unknown man and determined that he was very drunk.
This 38-year-old (by then identified) resident of Venice was arrested and charged with battery, and being drunk in public.
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.
