Charges Filed 2 Months After Bridal Shower Became Brawl

“After a lengthy investigation,” criminal charges have been filed against seven members of a Cerritos family who allegedly threw rocks and bottles at sheriff’s deputies during a melee in February, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said Monday.

The street violence engulfed a usually quiet neighborhood while a bridal shower was going on inside a home on Noran Avenue inhabited by Arthur Dole and his seven children, aged 20 to 30 years old. About 50 friends and relatives attended.

Reiner said neighbors of the Doles had complained that the shower was becoming a raucous affair and developing into a street brawl.

In quelling the disturbance, Reiner said, 15 deputies were injured, nine seriously enough to require medical attention.

‘Very Large People’

Reiner, accompanied by Sheriff Sherman Block, noted that the seven defendants--of whom four were charged with felonies, three with misdemeanors--”were very large people,” including Emily Dole, 31, a 350-pound wrestler known professionally as Mount Fiji.

Comparing the incident to the tragedy last weekend in Sheffield, England, where 94 spectators were killed at a soccer match, Reiner said:

” . . . When a group of people become a mob and they take over, it doesn’t matter that it’s a bridal shower; it doesn’t matter that it’s just a soccer game. A mob has a mentality of its own, and they’re very dangerous.”

Reiner said his investigation showed that the incident was sparked when David Dole, 28, who Reiner said weighs 245 pounds, “attacked one of the sheriff’s deputies, struck him and took him down to the ground.”

Then, Reiner said, Sale Paopao, 19, responded by “picking up a foot-and-a-half-long cinder block and heaving it at an officer. . . . Paopao is a very large man; he weighs 290 pounds.”

‘Deadly Acts of a Mob’

Paopao’s action, Reiner alleged, triggered “a shower of very large rocks and bottles filled with beer. . . . These were deadly acts of a mob that had been incited by one of their own. . . .”

David Dole and Paopao were charged with felonies in a 10-count complaint filed in Los Cerritos Municipal Court. Also charged with felonies were John Talamaival, 28, and Mark Rodarte, 28.

The four men were charged with assault with a deadly weapon against a peace officer, a felony, and misdemeanor rioting.

Emily Dole, Opa Tagaloa, 28, and Sheron Dole, 20, were charged with battery, obstructing a peace officer and rioting, all misdemeanors.

The defendants are to be arraigned May 1.

Reiner said 23 others who attended the shower remain under investigation.

The clash with deputies generated an immediate protest among members of the county’s Samoan community, which numbers about 60,000.

About 250 Samoans sang hymns and prayed in their native language during a rally outside the sheriff’s station in Carson, a community where thousands of Samoans live.

The Samoans said they wanted an apology from deputies for what they claimed was unnecessary force used to break up the bridal shower. Neighbors interviewed by The Times vigorously denied that any rocks or bottles were thrown at the approximately four dozen officers who responded to the incident.

Neighbors’ Response

“I told the police and the FBI that I didn’t see anything being thrown,” said one neighbor, who asked for anonymity.

Another neighbor, who claimed to view the entire incident from the arrival of the first deputies, also said “there was no rock throwing” and “I would go into court and say that.”

FBI spokesman Fred Regan said the agency was conducting an investigation to determine if any civil rights were violated.

At the time of the incident, neighbors also expressed alarm after seeing what they described as deputies beating some of the defendants with clubs while they were handcuffed on the ground in front of the Dole home.

A videotape taken by a neighbor shows deputies repeatedly hitting individuals lying on the ground.

But Block told reporters Monday that the actions of his officers were taken only when the handcuffed defendants “made efforts to get up off the ground” and that the blows were only “to the feet and lower extremities and did not create injuries. . . . (It) was not a wanton act of brutality.”

Block said his deputies followed “established policy for dealing with large parties” that get out of hand. His officers, he said, “absolutely, without question” conducted themselves properly.

The lawyer for the Doles, Garo Mardirossian, said he was “appalled that Reiner decided to file charges at such a late date. They waited 66 days to rewrite the police report to suit their purpose.

“I don’t know why (the deputies) did what they did. The police precipitated the entire incident.”