08/25/2026
Shootings in Santa Monica leave one dead and one injured.
Saturday, 12:49 p.m., 1400 block of Ocean Avenue. Officers investigating a domestic violence call say a man unconnected to that case ran at them with a knife and ignored repeated commands to drop it. One officer fired. The man was pronounced dead at 1:49 p.m. He was in his mid-40s. The coroner has not released his name pending next-of-kin notification.
Sunday, 7:49 p.m., near the Santa Monica Pier ramp. Police say a group approached a man during an attempted robbery and one of them fired, striking him in the leg. Non-life-threatening. The suspects fled. No arrests as of Monday.
The two shootings come as Santa Monica has reported a sharp rise in arrests this year under the city's Realignment Plan, a public safety-focused framework the City Council adopted unanimously on Oct. 28, 2025.
The plan committed $60 million in one-time reserves over 24 months to bolster policing, including doubling the department's downtown unit, adding non-sworn public safety officers in parks and downtown corridors, opening a new downtown substation, and launching a $6.125 million real-time crime hub known as the SMART Center.
Both remain under investigation. Police Chief Darrick Jacob said the information released so far is preliminary.
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