Santa Monica catches car thief red-handed with police drone

Santa Monica Police spotted and stopped a man using a drone to rob vehicles in a parking lot near the pier.

On July 6, a Santa Monica Police Officer radioed his department’s drone back to the station and decided to observe the crowds near the pier and surrounding parking lots during the Fourth of July weekend.

As the drone flew over Lot 1 North, the parking lot next to the pier, he noticed a man wandering around the parking lot, according to a video the department posted on its YouTube account.

“As (the pilot) watched, the suspect approached an unoccupied parked vehicle, retrieved tools from his sweatshirt, and quickly struck the driver’s door lock,” the department said in the video.

The drone footage shows the suspected burglar breaking the lock on the driver’s door of a black SUV and then climbing into the car.

He remained in the car for about two minutes, the department said.

While the man was in the vehicle, the drone pilot called officers to the location.

But before they arrived, the suspected burglar got out of the SUV and broke the lock of another vehicle, police said.

“The pilot was able to guide officers to the correct aisle in the parking lot, where they found the suspected burglar with several stolen items and arrested him for auto theft and various other theft offenses,” the police department said.

The department’s drone is part of a first responder program in which a sworn pilot flies the drone and can assist emergency responders on the scene by looking for fleeing suspects and directing them.