Student Fight Divides Campus : Bar Brawl Between Athletes, Gay Leader Sparks Criminal Charges, Differing Opinions

The stories all end the same.

But dividing the usually sleepy campus at the University of La Verne are drastically different accounts of what instigated a March 29 bar brawl, which some students and even the district attorney are calling a hate crime.

More than a dozen college students witnessed the fight at Nick’s Place, a pool hall and bar about a block from campus. Everyone interviewed by police said they saw freshmen baseball players Eric Britton, 20, and David Riffle, 19, throwing homophobic slurs and a few punches at Juan Miguel “Jamie” Bigornia, 21, police said.

But “depending on whose side they’re on” the witnesses gave the La Verne Police Department one of two disparate accounts of how the fight began, Det. Sgt. Darryl Suebe said.

Some said Britton and Riffle launched an unprovoked attack on Bigornia, 21, president of the university’s gay student union. In another version, however, police were told Bigornia was ogling Riffle before the fight broke out, said Suebe, quoting Riffle’s testimony.

“[Riffle] asked, ‘Do you have a problem?’ and then . . . he asked, ‘What are you staring at? . . . Are you a [homosexual]?’ ”

According to Riffle’s testimony, Bigornia said, “Yeah.” And then “a scuffle ensued,” Suebe said.

Nearly everyone at the school has heard both versions and a plethora of rumors surrounding the incident. The different stories have split the campus and sparked a criticism of the school administration, which has vowed not to get involved.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Jenkins this week filed misdemeanor assault and civil rights violation charges against the two baseball players, who are scheduled for arraignment May 23 in Pomona Superior Court.

But on campus, the men continue to play ball.

“They had to sit out a three-game series,” Athletic Director Jim Paschal said. The reprimand, however, was not in response to the fight. “They were disciplined for being in a place where they shouldn’t have been”--a bar. Both players are minors.

Riffle said he is not surprised by the school’s position and never expected to be punished by the administration or athletic department for the incident.

Bigornia, however, is outraged.

“They don’t get involved in their students’ well-being,” he said. “Are they just going to wait for me to get beat up on campus before getting involved?”

In the face of the administration’s position, students are taking on the lion’s share of involvement with the fight.

Students have organized peace rallies in response to the incident. Some sponsored open forum discussions and are planning a candlelight vigil for Thursday.

Others are also involved--but in expressing a different opinion: Earlier this week the campus newspaper reported that graffiti were found in a men’s restroom stall near the student center warning other gay men to “learn from what happened to Jamie.”

While students point fingers and debate culpability, the administration has defended its official position of not taking any position at all. University President Stephen Morgan called the incident a “possible hate crime” but said the issue will be decided in court, not on campus.

“We’ve received criticisms . . . because we stand by our policy not to take responsibility for students’ behavior off campus,” he said.

Riffle’s attorney, Joseph Dolan, said the incident is being blown out of proportion. He rejected use of the term “hate crime” and said, “The defense strategy is going to be mutual combat.”

Sitting around a student center table Friday morning, many of Britton’s supporters echoed Dolan’s interpretation of the fight. One friend, a sophomore who asked not to be identified, rolled her eyes when asked her opinion.

“Everybody’s making it out to be a gay-bashing thing, but I don’t think that is what it was,” she said. “I think it started out as a regular guy fight, and the guy happened to be gay, so it turned into a whole gay thing.”

The sophomore and her friends expressed their opinions candidly, but when baseball player Brock Whobrey, a junior, joined their table, the mood turned tense.

Whobrey sucked in a deep breath and then said he had to refuse to comment on the situation. “We’ve been advised by lawyers not to talk about it,” he said.

While some students at the university said they feel uncomfortable with homosexuality, they noted that they could find no justification for the baseball players’ actions.

“I don’t agree with Jamie’s lifestyle, but there was no reason he had to [go] through what he did, said junior Julian Esquivel, who was seated a few tables away from Whobrey and his friends. “Jamie is open about his sexuality. Sometimes he is too strong about it, but it is not like he’d go and push it on someone.”

Bigornia laughed at allegations that he started the fight or that he was coming on to the baseball player.

“I wasn’t looking at him, and even if I was, that doesn’t justify what was done to me,” Bigornia said. “I’m 5-foot-4 and 110 pounds. Why would I be such a threat to them?”

Bigornia said he doesn’t want this issue to turn him into “the poster boy for gays” on campus, but he does “want something to be done.”

“I was harassed and [my room was] vandalized freshman year,” he said. “Someone wrote [a derogatory term] on my door. Throughout my college career I always shrugged these things off, but with this I couldn’t.”