‘79 Gas Station Arrest Spurs an Unusual Suit

A former Fullerton policeman Wednesday took jurors on a verbal journey into the past, recalling the 1979 gasoline lines, a fight in a gas station and an arrest that spawned an event thought to be unique in Orange County history.

The man arrested was Albert Eugene King, who jumped the gas line, and the man who arrested him was Roy Swain, then a Fullerton policeman and now a federal prison guard in Tucson. The incident prompted a charge of police brutality by a Fullerton couple who witnessed the arrest, the criminal conviction of the couple and a civil suit by the couple, charging the police with false arrest in retaliation for their complaint.

Lawyers in the case said that there have been other cases where people were charged with filing false police reports. But they knew of none except the Garcia case in Orange County where the allegedly false complaint charged police misconduct.

It was at the couple’s civil suit against Fullerton, Swain, and seven other former or current city police officers that Swain testified Wednesday, two days after the trial began.

Swain said when he arrested King, he hit King on the upper arm twice with his baton because King was swinging at him. Swain, who is white, said he did not hit King, who is black, in the head and did not use excessive force in making the arrest.

Swain’s memory contrasted sharply with that of Jose Garcia, who on Tuesday testified that Swain “took the baton (and) cracked Mr. King over his head.”

‘It Was Sickening’

How did it sound, Garcia’s lawyer asked?

“It was sickening,” Garcia replied. “I mean it was appalling because it sounded dead. It sounded like . . . thud.”

Garcia and his wife, Joyce, went to the Fullerton police station on May 5, 1979, to file a complaint that police used excessive force in arresting King that day. The police report quoted the Garcias as claiming that King was handcuffed and was being led to a police car when he was struck with a nightstick by a policeman.

The Garcias said they were not allowed to write out their own report and were misquoted on the police report. But when King and other witnesses said he was not struck after being handcuffed, the Garcias were convicted in North Orange County Municipal Court of filing a false report with police.

Before they could be sentenced on the misdemeanor conviction, the state Supreme Court upheld a ruling by an appeals court acting in a different case that barred police from filing false report charges against private citizens who alleged police brutality. The reasoning was that police wield enormous power and could frighten citizens out of making legitimate complaints.

Had No Other Choice

The judge who presided over the trial said he thought the jury was correct in finding the Garcias guilty but declared that he had no choice other than to set aside their conviction because of the Supreme Court ruling.

Peter Callahan, the lawyer for Swain, the City of Fullerton and the other defendants in the civil suit, said Wednesday that he still contends “the Garcias turned in a false and exaggerated police report and they were properly convicted of that under the law that then existed.”

Callahan acknowledged the contention of the Garcias’ attorney, Frank Barbaro, that the prosecutor did not disclose the existence of witnesses who thought the police used excessive force. But he said that was not the issue at the Garcias’ trial.

“The Garcias were convicted not of (alleging police brutality) but of saying he (King) was struck after he was handcuffed,” Callahan said outside the court. “The issue is not police brutality or the arrest. The issue is what happened after the arrest.”

Long Wait at Pumps

Garcia testified Tuesday that he did not believe King intentionally swung at Swain at the gas station at Chapman and Placentia avenues in Fullerton, where motorists had been waiting for hours to get gas at a time of long gasoline lines and short tempers.

King had forced his way into the gas line, been sent back to the end of the line and complained to clerks at the Arco station, who telephoned police, according to testimony at the criminal trial.

Garcia said several police grappled with King, who was struck two or three times on the head. “Mr. King was a mess, he was a bloody mess,” Garcia said. “I mean, Mr. King’s face was covered with blood.”

Garcia said King “was in no condition to walk” when police bundled him into a police car, but Swain said that after the arrest King “walked with us without any problem. He talked with us without any problem. He did have blood on his face.”

King was originally charged with resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer, battery and two counts of disturbing the peace. But after a plea bargain with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to resisting arrest and was sentenced to two years’ informal probation, plus a $500 fine.

The Garcias charged the city and the police officers with false imprisonment, assault and battery, intentional infliction of mental distress, invasion of privacy and deprivation of civil rights. Their suit asks for general damages and $1 million in punitive damages.