Internal Probe of July 4 Party Raid Pledged : Family, Sheriff Agree to Drop Actions in Court

Misdemeanor charges have been dropped against two brothers arrested during a crowded July 4 party at a beachfront home in Del Mar after San Diego County sheriff’s deputies moved in to break up the celebration, officials said Friday.

Gary and Eric Wedbush agreed, in exchange for the dropped charges, to halt civil lawsuits they have filed against the Sheriff’s Department claiming that deputies used excessive force and sicked a police dog on Gary Wedbush.

The trade-off resulted from a recent meeting between Sheriff John Duffy and the brothers’ father, Edward Wedbush.

Lt. John Tenwolde, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman, said that Duffy and the elder Wedbush agreed it would be “in the best interests of all parties involved” to drop the charges against the brothers and halt the civil suit.

In an interview Friday, Wedbush said his sons agreed to withdraw their lawsuits against the Sheriff’s Department principally because they felt that it could help expedite disciplinary action against deputies involved in the Fourth of July fracas. The family hopes an internal affairs investigation will prove that several deputies overstepped legal bounds during the incident, Wedbush said.

Working in the System

“After talking about it with their parents, their friends and our legal counsel, both Gary and Eric felt they might have a more positive effect by working through the system, hoping that the internal affairs division will listen to the evidence and come to some sort of decision on disciplinary action,” the father said.

“They figured that they would be victorious in court, but it might take several years, and during all that time internal affairs would do nothing. What is a victory in that sort of case? By then, half the players are gone.”

He added that the willingness of the Sheriff’s Department to have charges against Gary, 23, and Eric, 20, dropped indicated that Duffy and other department officials felt that the brothers were innocent of any wrongdoing. Gary Wedbush was charged with failure to disperse, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. Eric was charged with unlawful assembly and failure to disperse.

In the months since the incident, the family has collected statements from various witnesses to the brawl. Tenwolde said sheriff’s officials will gather that information for review.

“If it contains any evidence of deputy misconduct, our internal affairs deputies will pursue that information and take any action that is appropriate,” Tenwolde said.

Accounts of the brawl vary widely.

Partygoers Versus Deputies

Senior officers in the Sheriff’s Department maintain a dozen deputies moved in to break up the party, which they say numbered about 500, when they observed guests littering neighbors’ yards, yelling and screaming, shooting off firecrackers and disturbing the entire neighborhood. Partygoers, however, estimated the crowd at about 200 and said it was orderly, though the music was loud.

Deputies maintain they waited 15 minutes after issuing the first of four orders to disperse before moving in to clear the scene. Partygoers contend they heard at most one order to disperse and say the deputies moved into the crowd swinging clubs about two minutes after that order was issued.

According to the sheriff’s report, Gary Wedbush attacked a deputy who was attempting to arrest his younger brother. Wedbush, however, told a reporter he merely spoke to the deputy and was careful to make no threatening moves after he saw the law officer grab his brother by the hair and begin “jerking him around violently.”

Wedbush said a deputy’s fist came out of nowhere, he was grabbed from behind and held while another officer approached with a German shepherd, urging the dog in to bite. The dog obeyed, biting Wedbush repeatedly on the feet and legs.

Next, Wedbush says, deputies pushed him over a 6-foot seawall onto the beach and began striking him with billy clubs. The dog was ordered back into the fray, biting Wedbush several more times, the young man said.

A sheriff’s report states that “a small laceration” on Wedbush’s head resulted from a fall from the sea wall.

Later, Eric Wedbush says he leaned over to inspect his brother’s bleeding head wound when an officer came up, “grabbed my hair and sweat shirt and dragged me across the pavement. Then, he took his boot, put it on my throat and pushed me onto my back.” When the deputy lifted the boot, the younger Wedbush said he sat up but was kicked in the chest by the law officer.

Gary Wedbush contends his torment continued after he was in custody. At both the Encinitas substation and the Vista jail, deputies mimicked barking noises and taunted him, Wedbush said.

“There’s a tremendous amount of evidence that some very bad things happened that night, in particular the improper use of the dog on Gary,” Edward Wedbush said.

“We’re going to be asking questions about who authorized the big sweep, what manager determined that there should be a dog involved. Those are the people who should be examined, in my opinion,” he said.

The elder Wedbush said he expected the Sheriff’s Department to take an investigation of the brawl very seriously, stressing that it would be “a huge disappointment” if the incident is glossed over.

“The challenge is up to them,” he said. “There’s a lot of people interested in this case. They’ve got their own internal affairs procedures to think about. They’ve got some pressure to do a good job.”