Santa Monica Pier Stabbing: Homeless Man Sentenced To 20 Years

LOS ANGELES, CA — A homeless man who stabbed an employee at a restaurant on the Santa Monica Pier after unsuccessfully demanding free food pleaded no contest Monday to robbery and assault charges and was immediately sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Calvin Earl Gullett, 34, entered Pier Burger about 10:50 a.m. last Sept. 7 and demanded food from employees, but was denied.

Gullett went back to the restaurant's kitchen area and stabbed an employee, then chased after two others with a knife that he had stolen from a retail store earlier in the day, according to prosecutors.

Responding officers found him on the beach just north of the pier and used a Taser to make the arrest when Gullett didn't comply with their orders.

According to the criminal complaint, the probationer had prior convictions for residential burglary in 2002 in Little Rock, Arkansas, and in Los Angeles for second-degree burglary and criminal threats in 2016.

He entered his plea to one count of robbery and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

— City News Service, photo courtesy of the SMPD