Four people are now facing charges in connection with a fight that happened last month near Santa Monica Pier. Police say the fight started when a seller started sexually assaulting several women.
Over the weekend, the Santa Monica Police Department said that four men had been charged with attack and one of them had been charged with sexual battery. The police are still looking for more information about what happened.
Around 2:30 p.m. on June 29, someone called 911 to say that several guys were fighting near the pier. Two other people were hurt, and cops say one person was stabbed.
Before police came, a Santa Monica police drone confirmed that a fight was still going on. At first, cops told The Times that there was “mutual combat” on the beach near Lifeguard Tower 14.
But police have since said that the fight started when a vendor, identified as 30-year-old Efigenio Tacuba, reportedly went up to a group of beachgoers and “sexually battered several females.” After some of the other people in the group talked to him, Tacuba asked the other sellers for help. After that, the other sellers got umbrella poles, belts, and at least one knife.
During the next fight, someone was stabbed and another someone broke their ankle. Both were taken to nearby hospitals with injuries that were not life-threatening.
In a social media post at the time, cops said that five people had been arrested. The police said on Saturday that four people had been charged. They are Jorge Cruz Murcia, Samuel Manzanarez Hernandez, and Oscar Samuel Hernandez. Each of them is charged with two counts of attack with a deadly weapon. As well as these charges, Tacuba, the fourth person, is also being charged with three counts of minor sexual battery.
Touching “an intimate part of another person” against their will to get sexually aroused is what California law says Tacuba did during the incident.
In their most recent statement, the police said that more charges were “likely to follow.” If you know anything about what happened or have a video of it, please email Det. Jacob Holloway or call the on-duty watch captain at (310) 458-8427.
It happened a few weeks after three people were hurt and two German tourists were stabbed near the Santa Monica Pier for no obvious reason. In that case, a suspect was caught at the end of May.
Three days before the large group fight, a man from Santa Monica is said to have attacked three women at the beach, first trying to choke a 17-year-old and then hitting and biting a woman who tried to help her. He is also said to have pulled and pushed a 72-year-old woman into the water.
32-year-old Jawann Dwayne Garnett was charged with two counts of attempted murder and many other crimes.
