A Cell Phone Story
Sunday, March 25 at 5:45 p.m. – 3200 block of Santa Monica Boulevard – Responding officers interviewed two men and determined: A man in his car turned off Santa Monica onto Centinela Avenue and then into an alley. A man on a bicycle stopped in front of the car; the car stopped; the cyclist yelled at the driver and accused him of almost hitting him. The cyclist threatened the driver, saying he was going to “kill” him, motioned as though he had a weapon, and maneuvered his bicycle next to the driver’s car window. The driver then got out his cell phone and called the police. The bicyclist rode away. The responding officers stopped the cyclist, interviewed both men and arrested the cyclist for making threats…and for violation of his parole.
Rendezvous Gone Bad
Tuesday, March 27 at 2:45 a.m. – 200 block of Beach Street – Officers responded to a Carjacking (Just Occurred) call and spoke to a man (Victim) who said that the man who stole his car (Suspect) was at that moment on his way to Surf Liquors in the 2500 block of Main Street. Police saw the Suspect driving the stolen car, stopped him in the 100 block of Ocean Park Boulevard and arrested him for carjacking (Penal Code section 215).
The back story: The Victim told police officers that at about 2:00 a.m. he thought he heard his car engine start; he looked outside and saw the Suspect in his car. The Victim ran outside and confronted the Suspect. An argument ensued; the Victim said the Suspect put his hand near his waist several times, as though he had a gun. The Victim asked if he could take his stuff out of the trunk before the Suspect stole his car; the Suspect said OK; the Victim removed his stuff. The Victim then asked what it would take for the Suspect to refrain from stealing the car (or to return the car, depending on how you look at it), and the Suspect said, “$500 and your iPod.” The two men then agreed to meet in five minutes at Surf Liquors to make the exchange. That’s when the Victim called the police. [“There are 88,000 stories in the Bay City…”]
Round Up the Usual . . .
Tuesday, March 27 from 4:40 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. – 800 to 1900 “blocks” of the Santa Monica Freeway (Interstate 10) – Santa Monica Police Officers made a dozen “pedestrian stops” and arrested a variety of individuals, took them to jail and booked them for misdemeanor violation of Municipal Code section 4.08.095 – the prohibition against “camping” in “public parks listed in Section 4.08.091, public beaches, the Santa Monica Municipal Pier, public streets, public alleyways, public parking lots, public passageways, public rights-of-way, publicly-owned landscaped areas or greenbelts, public educational institutions…, or other government-owned properties located within the City of Santa Monica.”
