A heavily armed man who was arrested at Zuma Beach last Sunday, April 11, has been arraigned at Van Nuys Courthouse and is awaiting trial, according to the LA County District Attorney’s Office. A spokesperson for the department could not confirm whether he remained in custody as of Tuesday, April 20.
The male suspect, 34-year-old Kyle Kiddy of Riverside County, was taken into sheriff’s department custody last Sunday after law enforcement was called to report he was harassing a local woman at the busy beach.
The sheriff’s department confirmed Kiddy was arrested at Zuma Beach last Sunday after he was found to be carrying a rifle and several hundred rounds of ammunition under his trench coat, with “other loaded handguns on his person, and then some other loaded shotguns in his vehicle,” according to LASD Lt. Jim Braden, the Malibu liaison to the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station. According to a photograph later posted by a Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station social media account, the weapons included a rifle, shotgun and two handguns.
Kiddy was reported by a resident who said he was harassing her on the beach and attempting to get her into his van. When sheriff’s deputies arrived, Braden said, they located the man sitting in a van parked along the roadway, at which point they engaged him in conversation.
As previously reported in The Malibu Times, a resident (who chose not to be named) posted on social media that the man, who had been wearing a heavy trench coat, had been following her at the beach and making lewd comments, attempting to convince her to get into his van parked near the beach. She called the sheriff’s department to report his aggressive behavior.
“Within 15 minutes, three SUVs arrived and surrounded the suspect. A deputy called me … and informed me that this man had been carrying loaded weapons with additional rounds of ammunition under his trench coat and they also discovered he had rifles and several more rounds of ammunition in his van,” she wrote.
In a later conversation with The Malibu Times, the resident described the man as being in his early 30s with dirty blond hair and wearing sunglasses.
“I assumed initially he was homeless and had layered all his clothing, because it was bulky under his trench coat. I didn’t know it was because he was carrying all of these weapons,” she said, adding that the man had been “Walking kind of strange … his arms were straight out like he was trying to hold something in.”
“When he got out of the van, deputies could see he had a rifle strapped underneath his coat—a loaded rifle,” Braden described.
Kiddy was arrested on multiple weapons charges—four counts of carrying concealed weapons and two counts of having a concealed firearm in his vehicle. Kiddy was arraigned on April 13 in Van Nuys and his next court appearance is a pretrial hearing set for May 3, 2021.
According to Braden, the LASD is leading the investigation, although the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) and FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigations) have been notified.
Braden pointed out that, although it was not known if the man was unhoused or transient, he did not recognize the vehicle from seeing it parked along the highway before.
The lieutenant also urged residents who witness “someone acting suspicious or strange” to call the department.
“Who knows what she prevented,” Braden said.