A 43-year-old Los Angeles man was arrested on Thursday, Jan. 16 after trying to steal an entire ATM machine from a hotel where he worked as a security guard.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were called out to a hotel in the 500 block of Pico Boulevard at 7:40 pm on Saturday, Jan. 4 in order to investigate a report of an attempted theft of an entire ATM machine.
Upon arrival, the officers spoke with several witnesses who said that three individuals had been seen attempting to steal an ATM machine from the hotel.
The witnesses told the officers that these men had removed the cash dispenser from the wall to which it had been bolted and had been in the act of wheeling it out of the door on a dolly when a witness spotted them.
The suspects, upon realizing that their somewhat less than stealthy attempt to purloin the bulky machine had been compromised, ceased their activity and ran away, leaving the machine in the lobby.
The officers requested the attendance of a forensic expert and this person lifted a fingerprint from the crime scene that turned out to belong to a security guard who was employed at the hotel.
This man was arrested and charged with burglary and grand theft. Bail was set at $150,000.
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.
