Huntington Beach Police Probe Finds No Excess Force

An internal investigation by the Police Department into allegations that officers used excessive force last summer when they broke up two parties and arrested nine people found no evidence of wrongdoing, officials said Tuesday.

The investigation was launched at the end of July after some residents and guests of two separate parties accused officers of misconduct and using excessive force when they shut down the parties on the night of July 28.

The department investigation found that the officers “acted within the scope of both the law and departmental policy and used only that amount of force reasonable and necessary in their handling of two independent party disturbance calls” on July 28, Huntington Beach Police Lt. Ed McErlain said.

A total of about a dozen officers were involved in breaking up two separate parties on Ocean Crest and Pennington drives.

Officers shut down the party on Pennington Drive and took three people into custody without incident.

At the party on Ocean Crest Drive, officers found more than 100 rowdy party-goers, McErlain said. When told about the neighbors’ complaint, the hosts promised to end the party, he said.

However, the noises and loud music continued, and officers decided to break up that party too, McErlain said. Some of the party-goers charged at the officers, leading to the arrests of nine people, six of whom were residents of the house, on charges of resisting arrest or assaulting a police officer, he said.

The residents and guests, however, accused the officers of using excessive force in shutting down the party. Several of the residents and guests said they were corralled in the living room, handcuffed and then beaten with batons.

The six male residents at the two-story house said they were having a party for about 60 to 70 friends. When officers arrived, there were only about 40 people still there, they said.

“One of the officers even had a gun out and was pointing it at people, saying: ‘If you move, I’ll kill you!’ ” Clinton Waterson said in an interview in July. Waterson, 25, was one of the residents arrested on charges of battery on an officer and resisting arrest.

Charges that they resisted and attacked the officers were “completely fabricated,” Philip Shirley, 28, another resident who was arrested on the same charges, said Tuesday.

“We expected this to happen,” Shirley said when told of the conclusion of the police investigation. “They can’t go around doing things illegally without pressing charges on someone else” to shift the blame.

No one from the Ocean Crest party lodged a complaint, McErlain said. Rather, one of the residents at the Pennington party filed a complaint with the department leading to separate investigations into the conduct of officers at both parties, he said. No individual officers were named in the complaint.

Although the investigations cleared the officers of any wrongdoing, police have taken steps to review training in the handling of disturbances, McErlain said.

The department has also begun to videotape some of the livelier parties officers have been called to investigate, he said.

Among other uses, the videotaping “will provide documentation of what type of action that we took,” McErlain said.

The Orange County district attorney’s office is reviewing the arrests from the Ocean Crest party, and criminal charges are expected to be filed against several of those arrested, McErlain said.