I Fought the Law, and the Law Maced Me
Monday, Nov. 11, 5:54 a.m. — Two deputies responded to reports of intoxicated subjects fighting at an apartment on the 6500 block of Cervantes Dr. The officers arrived at the residence and observed two men grappling on the floor through the window of the apartment.
As officers watched, the first subject, a 22-year-old man, placed his sparring partner in an “ankle lock,” causing the man to scream and “tap out.” After the bout ended, the first man, whose friend outweighed him by 60 to 80 pounds, said he could “fuck him up” because of his superior fighting skills.
The two quickly resumed fighting, and officers watched the first man continue to employ what they described as several other techniques used by fighters trained in jujitsu, judo and various other martial arts disciplines to get the better of his opponent.
Seeing that the man on the losing end of the fight had already suffered a black eye and was bleeding from the nose and mouth, one of the deputies slid open the unlocked window and instructed the men to stop fighting.
The first man asked the officer who he was and if he wanted to fight, to which the deputy replied, “We are deputies with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Dept.”
Unfazed, the man informed the deputy, “I’ll fuck you up.” He then turned to his battered friend and told him, “You’re a better fighter, but I’m going to fuck him up. Just let me pull my pants up.”
The deputy instructed both of them to settle down and get some sleep, but the man would have none of it.
“Do you want to fight?” he repeated. “Yeah, just let me put my belt on.”
While the man was attempting to ready his pants for battle, the officer again ordered him to settle down.
“No, I’m coming out there to fight. I’m going to fuck you up,” he replied.
Having observed the man’s proficient fighting skills, the officers readied their canisters of Oleoresin Capsicum – better known as pepper spray.
Trousers finally secure around his waist, the would-be street fighter opened the front door, looked at the deputies, assumed a fighting stance with closed fists, and received a two-second blast of pepper spray to the face.
Unable to stand up to the spray’s superior kung fu, the man staggered back into the house, where he was promptly taken into custody.
His friend refused treatment for his injuries and insisted that they were just playing around.
The man was taken to the Isla Vista Foot Patrol office for booking, where he was allowed to wash out his eyes, but his antics did not stop there.
He asked the arresting deputy why he had been sprayed, saying, “I’m 120 pounds. What am I going to do?”
The officer informed him that the man had threatened to injure them, and had confronted them in a fighting stance.
“I’m 120 pounds,” the man repeated. “What would you do if someone bigger than you wanted to fight?”
While the logical answer would be to run away, the deputy told the man that they never challenged him to a fight, and had seen him using formal ground fighting techniques.
The man then refused to provide information about his identity, so he was placed in a locked interrogation room as the officer used the man’s driver license to complete the booking paperwork.
As he was filling out the paperwork, another officer came outside and asked the deputy if he was aware that his arrestee was climbing into the office’s rafters.
According to police reports, the deputy rushed back to the detention room and discovered that the man had slipped his handcuffs to the front of his body. He had stacked the room’s plastic chairs and trashcan on top of one another to form a makeshift ladder, which he used to climb up into the acoustic ceiling tiles.
Unimpressed, the deputy pushed aside the chairs and trash can and assisted the man down from the ceiling.
The man was re-handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car and transported to Santa Barbara County Jail, where he was booked for resisting arrest, escape from custody, and vandalism less than $400 for putting a hole in the ceiling of the IVFP station.
Sorry, I Have to Take This
Friday, Oct. 29, 10 p.m. — Officers standing at the intersection of Sabado Tarde Road and Camino del Sur observed an 18-year-old woman standing at the southeast corner of the intersection crying and having trouble keeping her balance.
Officers attempted to contact the woman, who smelled strongly of alcohol and was slurring her words. However, the woman had more important business to attend to.
“I can’t talk to you,” she said to the officers. “I have to talk on my cell phone.”
As she made the comment, she started falling backwards, and had to be caught by a deputy standing behind her.
The reporting deputy noted that she did not trip or stumble before falling – “she simply fell backward with a blank expression on her face.”
When the deputy asked her how much she had had to drink, she replied that she was not sure, but that she knew it was too much.
She informed the officers that she was visiting from out of town, but could not tell them where she was, where she was going, or where her friends were. She did, however, seem to realize that this could potentially be a problem.
“I’m kinda worried,” she confessed. “This is crazy out here.”
Deputies took the woman into custody, at which point she stated that she didn’t know what was going on.
They pointed out that she was far too drunk to be wandering the streets.
“You’re right, that’s true,” she said.
The woman was transported to the IVFP office for booking, then to the Santa Barbara County Jail, where she was housed pending sobriety.
Selling Hot Dogs Without a License
Sunday, Oct. 31, 10:50 p.m. — Officers watching Halloween crowds from the sidewalk in front of a house on the 6600 block of Del Playa Dr. were approached by an unknown male who said that another man was exposing his penis in the street.
When the deputies spotted the man, he was standing in the middle of the crowd of several hundred people with his penis exposed through his unzipped pants, swaying side to side with a dazed look on his face.
Not impressed by the man’s idea of a firefighter costume, one of the deputies took him by the arm and dragged him out of the street. The man replaced his “fire hose” as they walked and attempted to zip up his pants with his free arm.
The man rambled incoherently as the deputy handcuffed him, his breath emitting a strong odor of alcohol.
He then asked why he was under arrest, to which the deputy replied that it was because he was intoxicated and had let it all hang out in the middle of a crowd.
The man denied any memory of exposing himself, but the deputy pointed out that the fact he zipped up when approached by law enforcement made it pretty clear that he knew what he was doing.
The man was transported to the IVFP office and booked for public intoxication and indecent exposure, and then taken to the Santa Barbara County Jail where he was housed pending sobriety.
