Bail was set at $100,000 for a 27-year-old homeless man on Friday, Dec. 20 after he stole a car from a Santa Monica CVS parking lot that ended with a chase involving the California Highway Patrol in the Santa Ana area.
Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department went to the 1400 block of Ninth Street at 7:45 pm on this day after they had received a report of a strong-arm robbery that had occurred.
Upon arrival the officers spoke with the victim, a woman who told them that she had been in the process of walking to her vehicle that was situated in the CVS parking lot when she became aware that a man was following her.
The woman continued to say that as she opened the door of her automobile the man suddenly grabbed the keys from her hand and pushed her out of the way.
The man then jumped into her car, started the engine and proceeded to reverse into another vehicle. The man then drove off.
The officers, after hearing this, immediately placed the vehicle onto the statewide computer database as a reported stolen vehicle, and a Los Angeles Sheriff Department Deputy who was responding to a report of a possible drunk driver on the Santa Ana area, spotted the vehicle and a chase ensued.
After the California Highway Patrol had joined in the chase a precision immobilization technique, or PIT maneuver, was initiated, bringing the vehicle to a standstill.
The man was arrested and later transported back to Santa Monica where he was charged with robbery (carjacking style robbery to be precise).
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.
