Official Says Marine Was Drunk, Likely Died in ‘Fair Fight’

An El Toro Marine who died in a fistfight with two Cal State Fullerton football players was extremely intoxicated and may have instigated the brawl that led to his death, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

While explaining that no decision had been made on whether to file charges in the case, Deputy Dist. Atty. Melvin L. Jensen said evidence collected so far indicated that Staff Sgt. Richard Bottjer probably died in a “fair fight” and was not the victim of a gang attack.

“It certainly wasn’t any gang-like thing,” Jensen said. “There wasn’t any gang out there. The use of the word gang creates something in people’s minds that just did not exist.”

Early reports following the incident last week indicated that as many as six Cal State Fullerton football players and friends had beaten Bottjer and another Marine to the ground in a dark parking lot and then savagely kicked them into submission.

Witnesses Interviewed

But based on interviews with as many as 15 people, including the two Titan football players who actually fought with the Marines, Jensen said, a picture is emerging of what was “ostensibly a fair fight.”

Instead of being four or six men against the two Marines, Jensen said, it appeared that Bottjer and Lance Cpl. Thomas Duran went two-on-two against Carlos Siragusa, 21, and John Gibbs, 22, the Titan football players who were suspended from the team while the police investigate.

Neither Siragusa, a quarterback, nor Gibbs, a wide receiver whose father is a retired Marine, could be reached for comment.

According to Jensen, there also was increasing evidence that Bottjer, 30, may have instigated the fight or egged the football players on after a shoving match broke out at Baxter’s bar and restaurant on North State College Boulevard in Fullerton.

“I think you can say that,” he said. “That appears to be the reports that we are getting now.”

After being ejected from the bar by bouncers, the group moved across the street to continue the fight in an empty parking lot next to a pizza restaurant. There, according to police, Gibbs reportedly threw one or two punches at Bottjer.

Police investigators said Tuesday that there was no evidence in the autopsy report that Bottjer had been kicked once he was down.

Heart Transplant

Duran also ended up on the ground but was not seriously hurt. Bottjer, a flight information specialist at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, died about 24 hours after the fight at St. Jude Hospital in Fullerton. His heart was later taken to UCI Medical Center where it was implanted in the chest of an ailing Huntington Beach man in Orange County’s first successful heart transplant.

Police have sought to downplay the fact that Gibbs was described as a holder of a black belt in karate in his biographical data in the Cal State Fullerton football media guide.

“Marines are taught those things too, aren’t they?” said Sgt. Tony Hernandez, a Fullerton police detective, adding that it held no special significance in the investigation.

Bob Morse, 38, manager of the Lamppost Pizza restaurant, said he was at Baxter’s at the time of the scuffle but, like most other patrons there, did not pay much attention to what was going on.

“The bouncers were immediately there and escorting people out. Five minutes later, I walked by the front door at Baxter’s, looked across the street and there were two people lying in the parking lot,” Morse said.

“One got up and the other never did get up. There was nobody else around them, but there were people standing outside Baxter’s watching. I walked across the street, and there were people trying to help him.”

High Alcohol Level

Jensen, who said he hoped to make a decision on whether to file charges by the end of this week, confirmed that at the time of the Marine’s death his blood alcohol level was 0.26, more than 2 1/2 times the level at which a driver is presumed to be intoxicated.

Capt. Don Bankhead, one of the chief Fullerton police investigators, called a blood alcohol level of 0.26 “beyond just being under the influence. It could be stumbling-down drunk to the point of a person not being able to walk and act reasonably normal.

“I’ve seen some people blitzed on a small amount of alcohol and other people that it doesn’t affect them that much. I don’t believe he was a stumbling-down drunk type person, but certainly he was well beyond being just under the influence.”

California Highway Patrol Officer David Shisler, called any reading over 0.20 “being really blitzed. It depends on your ability to handle it, but that is pretty high.”

Jensen said the fight could fall into the legal category of “mutual combat,” a situation in which charges often are not filed if no weapons are involved.

“Mutual combat is basically when two persons agree to fight each other,” he explained. “I suppose that if you’ve got Bruce Lee and he agrees to fight 20 people that’s his business. The sides don’t have to be even.”

Jensen emphasized that no decision on charges had been made.

‘All the Facts’

“We want to see all the reports before we make a determination,” he said. “We want all the facts. We don’t want rumors and half truths. (But) there’s always the possibility of justifiable or excusable homicide. . . . Those are legal kinds of homicides. Just because a person dies doesn’t mean there’s a crime.”

Said attorney Stephan A. DeSales, who has been retained by Gibbs and Siragusa: “I think when the opportunity presents itself, the full story will come out. I’d rather not make any comments that could jeopardize the investigation.”

At the Cal State Fullerton campus, where the athletic and coach’s offices were barraged with threatening telephone calls Monday, officials said things were returning to normal Tuesday. Some calls from concerned people were received, but none with the ugliness of the previous day.

The football team continued its spring drills without Gibbs and Siragusa.

“When we put on our pads, we just want to play football,” said Bill Bryan, a junior linebacker. “I’m not worried about (Gibbs and Siragusa). They’ll be all right.”

Added Tommy Thompson, a defensive lineman, “I’m not thinking about it. They’ll be all right.”

Tuesday evening at Ferrara Colonial Mortuary in Orange, more than 20 mourners filed by Bottjer’s casket. No one spoke publicly during the two-hour visitation, but several friends and relatives cried openly. The open casket was draped with an American flag.

Last rites will be at 10 a.m. today in the chapel at the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station. Burial is scheduled at 1:15 p.m. at Riverside National Cemetery.

Times staff writers Robyn Norwood and A. Dahleen Glanton contributed to this report.