A man who attempted to evade sheriff’s deputies Sunday morning by jumping into the ocean near Sunset Boulevard and swimming away was later arrested after he returned to shore, a sheriff’s spokesman said.
Henry Ferrera, 27, is being held at the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station after he fled a deputy who had detained him for panhandling at the intersection of Sunset Blvd. and Pacific Coast Highway, according to Sgt. Mark Bock. Ferrera later swam 200 hundred yards in the ocean before returning to shore due to apparent fatigue and cold as county lifeguards monitored from boats, Bock said. Ferrera is also being held for a felony domestic violence warrant, Bock said.
At 10:30 a.m. deputies were called to the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Sunset Blvd., where Ferrera was accused of blocking the roadway and the sidewalks with “aggressive solicitation and panhandling,” Bock said.
When Ferrera could not produce identification, the officer had him sit in the back of his squad car with the door open. Ferrera then took off, evading the deputy, who slipped while attempting to tackle Ferrera, before crossing PCH and descending to the beach.
“He runs down on to the sand and I guess he has nowhere to go, so he decides he’s going to go down to the ocean and swim away,” Bock said. “So we had lifeguards at our Marina del Rey station start responding just to monitor him while he’s in the water.”
The suspect started to tire after a short time, Bock said.
“He was starting to get fatigued, kind of the combination of that and the cold. He wasn’t going to swim anywhere,” Bock said.
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