Simi Valley Police Department – Incident Press Release
On July 21, 2021, at approximately 6:00 PM, Officers responded to a call of a subject screaming and chasing people to the front of the Senior Center, 3900 Avenida Simi. Upon arrival, officers from the Homeless Liaison Unit (HLU) arrived and contacted the subject. The officers immediately recognized the subject as Joseph Digerolamo, from previous contacts and were aware that he had an outstanding felony warrant for his arrest. As the officers went to arrest the suspect for his warrants, the suspect attempted to flee and a struggle ensued. During the struggle, the suspect bit one of the officers in the arm.
A member of the community saw that the suspect was fighting with the officers and she immediately ran over to assist them. The suspect was subsequently handcuffed, and taken into custody.
The officer sustained a bite wound to the arm and the suspect sustained minor scratches and scrapes from the struggle. Both the officer and suspect were treated at a local hospital for their injuries and released.
Suspect Joseph Digerolamo 42 years old from Simi Valley was booked at the Ventura County Main Jail for Battery on a Police Officer, Resisting an Officer, and his felony arrest warrant.
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Luckily he wasn’t armed with a knife or some other object that can inflict great bodily injury and death, otherwise we would be treated to another spectacle of a funeral procession for a fallen officer.
I’m surprised there isn’t a short video of the end of the struggle showing how brutal the officers were in making the arrest of a poor homeless individual having a mental health crisis. See my comments regarding Prop 47 and 57. How many times has this — well, I won’t use the pejorative I really want to use — been convicted or having been arrested, got his case dismissed because it was continued so often that the witnesses just stopped showing up and losing a day of work? How many misdemeanor convictions does he have? How many felony convictions? How many felonies were reduced to misdemeanors on a plea deal?