A 32-year-old Los Angeles man was arrested and charged with hate crime battery on Monday, Aug. 24, after punching a man at the beach in the face.
At 11 am officers of the Santa Monica Police Department responded to a report of an assault that had occurred in the 1200 block of Santa Monica Beach. When the officers arrived they noticed that Los Angeles County Lifeguards accompanied all the involved parties, and that the lifeguards had handcuffed the primary suspect in this case.
The officers spoke with the victim who told them that he and a friend had arrived at the beach at approximately 10:30 that morning and that the suspect had approached them and asked if he could use some of their sunscreen. He said that they had allowed the suspect to use the sunscreen.
The victim continued to say that the suspect had then entered the ocean and enjoyed a swim. He said that when the suspect had finished swimming he had approached them again and had asked him if he and his friend were gay.
He said that he had responded by asking the suspect “if that mattered” at which point the suspect had punched the victim in the face, causing a cut above the victim’s eye and a bloody nose. The victim then said that the suspect had returned to the area where the suspect’s belongings had been situated and it was then that the victim had notified the lifeguard. The officers arrested this L.A. and he was charged with hate crime battery. 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.
