Vandal with Pipe Assaults Resident Who is Calling Police on Him, is Arrested

4.29.22: A man with a pipe broke a window in the alley between Lincoln and 7th Street at Arizona and then assaulted a resident who tried to stop him from breaking additional windows.

Arthur Jeon, Santa Monica resident, was walking home from his gym on the Promenade when he witnessed the original vandalism. He wrote in an email addressed to Downtown Santa Monica Inc, "I saw a man throw a two-foot heavy pipe and break a window in a building on the alley between Lincoln and 7th at Arizona, a block from my house. When I asked him what he was doing, he came out of the alley at me with the pipe while I was on 911.

"He backed me up on the sidewalk as he followed, threw a full coffee in my face, swung the pipe at me, cursed me, and threatened me, still backing me up. He said he didn't break the window, it was already broken.

"I said I saw him throw the pipe. He kept threatening me and it got a bit salty, but I was determined that he be arrested before disappearing down some alleyway. When he turned I followed him from a distance while on 911 as he was smashing everything in his way with the pipe. Several times he turned and rushed me. But my ONLY concern was that he was found and arrested and taken off the streets before he attacked somebody else with the pipe. Like a little old lady. Or my wife, who has been threatened too many times to count."

Jeon says Santa Monica Police Department officers arrived within minutes and were "cool, calm, and professional." While Officers Fink and King took Jeon's statement, other units located the individual and arrested him. Police found the broken window and even the coffee cup from the assault.

"I wish I could say this was unusual," Jeon wrote in his email, "but it happens all the time."

John Alle, a property owner on the Third Street Promenade, also wrote to Downtown Santa Monica Inc in the same email thread that 63% of retail tenants on the Promenade are victims of 'walk-in-and-grab' robberies, a number culled from a personal survey of every business on the Promenade. 55% of hotel reservations are cut short because tourists don't feel safe in Santa Monica according to information from hotels along Ocean Avenue. 86% of city residents will not shop or dine in downtown Santa Monica because they do not feel safe according to a city-run poll.

The Santa Monica Police Department is budgeted for 221 officers, but only 174 are currently working. Perpetrators of "nonviolent" crimes are released without bail in Los Angeles County despite state law dictating otherwise.