Deputy, Hurt in Brawl, Shoots Assailant : Encounter on Freeway Ends in a Free-for-All along Roadside

An off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, clubbed with a gun butt, shot and wounded a 24-year-old Anaheim man early Saturday morning in a roadside brawl touched off by an incident on the Orange Freeway, Brea police said.

The deputy, Jeffrey Grant, 28, was treated at St. Jude Hospital in Fullerton and released. The man he shot, David Belanger, was reported in stable condition at the University of California, Irvine, Medical Center in Orange.

Brea police Lt. Bill Lentini said Belanger and two others, Randall L. Starkey, 26, of Rowland Heights, and Patrick Casey Dooley, 24, of Pomona were held for investigation of assaulting a police officer.

According to Lentini, the confrontation began at about 1 a.m. when Starkey, driving a sports car, and his passenger, Dooley, pulled alongside Grant’s car and made threatening gestures because they thought the deputy had cut them off at a point where the freeway narrows in Fullerton. Riding with Grant was Joseph Hensley, 29.

At the same time, Lentini said, Belanger, who had earlier been out for the evening with Starkey and Dooley, drove a pickup truck in front of Grant’s automobile and slammed on the brakes.

Fearing he would be forced off the road, Lentini said, Grant drove off the freeway at Imperial Highway, heading for the Brea police station, but his car was forced into a ditch on Birch Street.

Grant got out of his car and identified himself with his sheriff’s badge, according to Lentini, but Dooley reached Grant as the deputy was pulling his gun, and they struggled, while Starkey wrestled with Hensley.

While the four fought, Lentini said Belanger struck Grant on the head, back and ribs with the butt of the weapon, inflicting head lacerations that required 26 stitches. When Grant gained control of his handgun, he fired twice. The shots struck Belanger in the hand and back.

The gunshots were heard at the nearby Brea police station. Grant and Hensley were running toward the headquarters when investigating officers arrived, Lentini said.