Coach Arrested After SUV Crash

A youth football coach has been dismissed from the Pop Warner organization after being arrested on charges of drunk driving and willful child endangerment in connection with an accident he and three team members were in last week while driving to Laughlin, Nev.

Barrett Brown, 35, a Pee Wee coach for the city’s Pop Warner football league, was arrested by the California Highway Patrol after his 1995 Isuzu Rodeo overturned on a rural highway at 6:15 p.m. Friday, five miles outside Needles, authorities said.

All of the persons in the vehicle were treated for minor injuries and released, authorities said.

Brown’s attorney would not comment on the case Wednesday.

Brown, who lives in Cypress, was taking three boys, all 11 or 12 years old, to a postseason consolation game. Officials with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said Brown was jailed over the weekend in lieu of $101,053 bail.

At an arraignment Tuesday, San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Joseph R. Brisco dropped Brown’s bail to $16,053. Brown pleaded innocent to all charges, court officials said.

Brown posted bail Wednesday morning and is due back in Needles for a pretrial hearing Dec. 19. He faces a maximum of seven years in prison if convicted.

Brown has coached football for boys 12 years and younger in the Pop Warner organization for the last two years and represented the city’s six team leaders on the agency’s board of directors until the accident.

“Obviously, he has been removed both as coach and as a representative,” said Steve Sherman, president of the Huntington Beach Pop Warner chapter, adding that all coaching positions in Pop Warner are voluntary.