Olympic athlete may face further felony charges
LAX COURTHOUSE — A former Olympian was arrested last week by local police for allegedly kidnap-ping and robbing a Santa Monica woman twice in the past month.
Danny Harris, who captured the silver medal in track and field at the 1984 Olympics, was arrested last Wednesday for allegedly kid-napping a 75-year-old Sunset Park woman and stealing from her home on Oct. 18 and Nov. 4. Harris, 39, also allegedly threatened to kill the woman with a syringe and screwdriver.
At the time of the alleged crimes, Harris was residing at the Clare Foundation, a local facility for recovering drug addicts, police said. Harris is now sitting in a cell at the Twin Towers facility in downtown Los Angeles.
He pleaded not guilty in court Monday on seven felony charges related to his alleged kidnapping of the elderly Sunset Park woman. He is being held in lieu of $1.44 million bail. Police believe Harris is responsible for other crimes in the area and additional charges may be filed soon, said Santa Monica Police Lt. Frank Fabrega. Trained bloodhounds led police to Harris using the scent from a cap that was found at the crime scene.
“What minimal evidence I’ve been provided by the district attorney we’re investigating at the present time, but it looks like a classic case of misidentification,” said Matt Huey, Harris’ public defender, on Monday.
Born in Torrance and raised in Perris, Calif., Harris studied at Iowa State, where he played defensive back on the football team and developed his talents on the track. He won the silver medal in the 1984 Olympics and continued to improve, but in 1988 failed to qualify for the Olympics. Harris returned to California, where he began using cocaine, according to press reports.
Though Harris was able to beat his drug addiction and return to the track at least twice in the following years, his cocaine habit apparently won out. Sometime in the past year, Harris wound up at the Clare Foundation, a nonprofit organization off of Lincoln Boulevard that helps drug and alcohol addicts organize their lives.
It was while living there that Harris allegedly committed a series of burglaries and robberies in the Sunset Park neighborhood, mainly in the area bounded by Lincoln Boulevard to the east, Pico Boulevard to the north, Ocean Park Boulevard to the south and 20th Street or further to the east, Fabrega said.
A preliminary hearing is expected to take place later this month. Meanwhile, David Rolston, program director for the Clare Foundation, which has a $4 million annual budget, reassured neighbors that Clare carefully screens its clients.
“You get a jaywalking ticket, that’s one thing. You go in and steal a purse that’s an entirely different thing,” he said. “We obviously don’t want to have violent criminals in our midst. That doesn’t create a safe environment for everyone else. We’re probably going to screen those clients into a different agency than Clare...
“In today’s political climate things are changing in Santa Monica. The reality is we have approximately 208 beds,” Rolston added. “And those are 208 people who would normally, in any other situation, be out on the streets.”
Harris has faced trying times before. He lost his mother when he was 3 years old. His father died when he was 14. In 1999, Harris was diagnosed with colon cancer. He spoke about his drug addiction last fall after being inducted into the Iowa Sports Hall of Fame.
“I’m clean and sober today,” he told The Des Moines Register. “If I make it past tonight, I’ll have a chance to do it again tomorrow... I figured I’d have the opportunity to run in four Olympics, but the one silver medal is all I have. Obviously, with the drug thing, if I had it to do over again, I never would have started. The pain and embarrassment it caused me and the people close to me, it’s taken a long time to get over it.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 16, 2004. Read the original PDF.