Surf Wars

It’s a very big ocean. But there are only a few choice surfing spots.

So, in beach lingo, things sometimes do get aggro out there--as they did one recent afternoon at Torrance Beach, when 72-year-old Phil Mehan, a bodysurfer, and 20-year-old Jay Findley, a surfboarder, got into a whale of a fight that has left both men urging authorities to press criminal charges against the other.

Police expect to bring the case this week to the Torrance city prosecutor, who will decide if charges are warranted. Mehan says Findley held his head under water for 30 to 45 seconds and tried to kill him. Findley has told police he had no intent to harm the older man--who, he alleges, hit him first, bopping him while both were still in the water with a left jab smack-dab in the kisser.

Their fight highlights a problem little known to those who don’t regularly frequent Southern California beaches--the ongoing conflict between surfers and swimmers, both asserting a sense of ownership over this or that little patch of the big Pacific.

Hostility between surfers and swimmers is largely attributable to the same thing fueling an increase in recent years in surfer-on-surfer violence: too many people congregated in a small stretch of water, particularly at or near the same surf spot, or “break.” Sometimes those breaks are also prime swimming and bodysurfing locales.

“It is a problem and sometimes it’s a nightmare,” said county lifeguard Lt. Bob Schroeder, who supervises the shoreline from Marina del Rey to San Pedro.

No statistics document the frequency of such fights, whether surfer versus surfer or swimmer versus surfer.

But, lifeguards said, it’s fairly common to see shows of intimidation such as taunts and threats.

It’s less common, lifeguards said, to see fists flail. But it does happen, they said.

Usually, according to Schroeder, the warring parties are cautious enough to take their activity away from a lifeguard’s watchful eyes--for instance, meeting in a parking lot back on shore.

There’s an unwritten rule of beach culture at work as well, a rule that keeps authorities from fully documenting the frequency of fights over surf ‘n’ turf: If a fight does occur, neither party is likely afterward to run to a lifeguard--or to a police officer--to tattle. Unless there’s injury, and serious injury at that, it’s the sort of thing that’s simply not done.

Nevertheless, Schroeder said, it’s a fact of beach life that the conflict between surfers and swimmers swells in the late spring and summer.

For most of the rest of the year, when the skies are generally gray and foggy and the water is downright chilly, wetsuit-clad surfers “have owned the range,” Schroeder said. But when even the early morning sky is a vivid blue and the water warms up, swimmers increasingly return to the sea.

Then, he said, “you’ve got two groups who want to use the water. And while they both love the water, they’re not necessarily compatible.”

That, of course, is for the obvious reasons: A surfboard can zip through the water faster than any swimmer. And it can really hurt to get hit, even accidentally, with a surfboard--especially with a fin, which can cut like a knife.

For that reason, lifeguards establish zones to make it safer for swimmers--marked off by red flags planted ashore, typically about 150 feet apart.

When the red flags are up, these are the rules: If there are swimmers between the flags, no surfing within the flagged zone; if there are no swimmers, surfing between the flags is OK.

The only board-users allowed to mingle with swimmers and bodysurfers are boogie-boarders, who ride a shorter, finless, flat foam board.

About 5:30 p.m. on June 20, Findley rode his surfboard between the red flags at Torrance Beach, Police Det. Cindy Gayda said.

Even Findley admits he did, she said. Beyond that, however, Findley and Mehan have each offered a version of events that differs considerably from the other’s, she added.

It is part of Mehan’s daily schedule to go bodysurfing. Mehan, a shopping center developer, said he has been bodysurfing in the waves off Redondo Beach and Torrance since he returned home from World War II.

On the afternoon in question, after he’d been in the water for about five minutes within the area marked by the red flags, Findley, surfing on his board, passed by within five or six feet, he said.

Mehan said he asked Findley politely to stay outside the red flags. Mehan said Findley immediately replied by swearing at him and declaring that no “old man was going to tell him where to surf.”

Mehan said he tried to catch another wave but had to dive under as Findley bore down on him again.

“What are you trying to do, kill me?” Mehan said he shouted. He said Findley replied, “I told you to get out of the water, you . . . old man, or I’m going to kill you!”

Mehan said he tried to catch a wave to get back to shore. He said he got halfway there when Findley jumped off his surfboard and “began to physically attack me.”

In self-defense, Mehan said, he fired a left jab. Findley, he said, grabbed him by the neck and held his head under water. Mehan said he came up for air for good only when a lifeguard separated them.

Findley did not respond to repeated attempts to contact him for comment. In an interview with police, however, he insisted that Mehan was the aggressor, according to Gayda.

Findley told police that he and Mehan argued after his first pass into the swim area.

Gayda said Findley told her that he hopped off his board after a second trip. He said Mehan yelled at him some more, shouting, “Can’t you stay on your board?” and calling him a name.

“Total lie,” Mehan said upon being told of Findley’s comments. “I don’t talk that way,” he said.

It’s not clear, meanwhile, whether Findley was surfing into the swim area inadvertently or on purpose.

“If [a surfer] gets a nice wave, they’re not going to stop because of an invisible line in the sea,” Schroeder said.

Added Steve Hawk, editor of Surfer magazine: “Every surfer has . . . ridden a wave into a bodysurfing zone. That’s when you get extra-cautious and you get out of there. The last thing you want to do is hurt somebody.”

As Mehan was yelling at him, according to Findley’s comments to police, he told the older man, “Why are you bugging me? Just leave me alone.”

Findley, 5-10 and 175 pounds, said he headed for shore. Halfway there, he told police, he encountered Mehan, also heading for shore. They yelled at each other some more, Findley told detectives, and then Mehan, 5-11 and 190, adopted a boxer’s stance.

That, Findley said, made him laugh.

The laughter, he told police, apparently enraged Mehan, who punched him in the mouth.

Mehan continued to swing at him, Findley told police. The only thing he could think to do, he said, was to grab Mehan and “dunk his head under water a few times while waiting for the lifeguard to come out,” according to Gayda.

Mehan “is adamant that the surfer tried to kill him,” Gayda said. Findley, however, is equally adamant that “he did no such thing, he would never strike an old man, and he had not aimed his surfboard at the man,” she said.

It will be up to the city prosecutor to determine whether to file charges against either man, or both, Gayda said.

Meanwhile, there’s a long summer to go before most of the swimmers beat a wintry retreat. And, as magazine editor Hawk pointed out: “Waves are a rare gift. When they come, it’s easy to get possessive. Too easy.”