Officers Investigated for Role in Brawl During Padre Game

Two off-duty San Diego County sheriff’s correctional deputies and a San Diego police officer are under investigation for allegedly dousing two college students with beer and punching them repeatedly at a Padres baseball game last month.

During the July 26 game between the Padres and the New York Mets, the three officers and another man, rooting for the Mets, got annoyed with the two students, who were cheering for the Padres, eyewitnesses said.

Thomas and Barbara Ziel, who were sitting in the same row as the students and two rows behind the men, said the four Mets fans twice threw full cups of beer and made obscene gestures at the young men, who continued to cheer on the Padres. The Padres beat the Mets that night, 8-2.

The Ziels said the four climbed over two rows of seats and began punching the students, bloodying the face of one. Security guards led all but one of the Mets fans away, and the man returned to his seat, the Ziels said. When he was approached by a security guard, the man said he was a police officer and displayed his badge.

When the crowd around him urged that he also be removed, security led him away, the Ziels said.

“All of these people were detained by stadium security and taken to a detention facility in the stadium,” said Cmdr. Larry Gore, a department spokesman. “When it was determined that one of those present was a police officer, we commenced an internal affairs investigation.”

Sheriff’s Department spokesman Dan Greenblat said the two correctional deputies also are under an internal investigation.

None of the officers’ names were disclosed because of a state law that keeps law enforcement investigations confidential. The students did not press charges, and police, citing the internal affairs investigation, refused to release the names.

Everett Bobbitt, who represents the police officer, said his client was not involved in the fight.

“He wasn’t the one who was doing the hitting,” Bobbitt said. “My understanding was that the beer was thrown by the Padres fans. I personally talked to my client the night of the incidents, and he was not intoxicated. His biggest crime was that he was with some people who were in a ruckus.”

It was not known who, if anybody, was representing the correctional officers.

The Ziels, season ticket holders who were contacted Tuesday by the Police Department’s internal affairs unit, said they were amazed that law enforcement officials were involved.

“My first thought was how utterly stupid of these guys,” Barbara Ziel said. “The police have such a bad reputation, and the Sheriff’s Department is even worse. If they are going to do this at a ballgame, what are they doing to people on the street?”

Barbara Ziel said all four Mets fans “were husky and muscular. One looked like a sumo wrestler, a great big bruiser.”

One of the men who was not a law enforcement official had turned around and “given the finger” to the students and one of the officers called one of the students “a . . . faggot” before throwing a full cup of beer, she said.

Another cup of beer was tossed back in about the sixth or seventh inning, and Barbara Ziel said she decided to clear out.

When she turned around, the four men had climbed over two rows and “all four of them were whaling on the two kids,” she said. “In fact, the whole ballgame stopped.”

After the fight, she said, “There was blood all over the place. There was blood next to me they wiped up. One kid had blood underneath his neck.”

Three of the four Mets fans and the two students were ushered out, and one of the Mets fans sat back down.

“He sat in his original seat, and he told a security guard, ‘I’m a police officer and I wasn’t involved,’ ” Thomas Kiel said. “So the security guard asked to see his badge. I couldn’t believe it when he pulled it out. I saw red. Off-duty cops are beating up kids at a baseball game. I thought I’d never see that in San Diego.”

The officer was ejected when dozens of fans around him, joined by a police sergeant who was sitting in a section nearby, said the man was in the midst of the fray.

“I used to be proud of the police here,” said Thomas Kiel, who was a reserve officer for both the San Diego Police and Sheriff’s departments. “Now I’m ashamed of them.”

After internal affairs finishes its investigation on the police officer, the results will be sent to the city attorney’s office for possible criminal prosecution, Gore said. The district attorney’s office will handle the findings of the Sheriff’s Department regarding its deputies.