Officer Named in Previous Civil Suits

A 26-year-old Huntington Beach officer who shot and killed a teen-age farm worker, who police said pointed a toy rifle at him, has been accused in civil lawsuits of using excessive force in two previous cases.

Mark W. Wersching, who joined the Police Department five years ago, was officially identified Tuesday as the patrolman who shot Antonio Saldivar, 18, in the early morning hours of May 5 after a short foot chase in the city’s Oakview neighborhood.

Police said Wersching fired after Saldivar pointed a rifle at him that turned out to be a toy. The killing sparked outrage in Saldivar’s neighborhood, including demonstrations outside the Huntington Beach City Hall.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which is investigating the shooting, identified Wersching in response to a Public Records Act request filed by news organizations. Huntington Beach police and the city attorney’s office initially withheld Wersching’s name, saying they feared for his safety after receiving threats against him.

They agreed to release his name only after becoming convinced there was a legal obligation to do so, police spokesman Lt. Chuck Thomas said Tuesday. He declined to detail the threats.

“I would say that the potential for them to be carried out, we believe, is very real and we are concerned for his safety,” Thomas said.

Sheriff’s investigators on Tuesday also released a photograph of the toy rifle that police said Saldivar pointed at Wersching before being shot. They compared the photo with one of a real .22-caliber lever-action rifle. The two weapons appear similar, but the wooden stock on the toy gun is worn down and rutted, and a red cap circles its muzzle.

Sheriff’s spokesman Jim Ammormino said he did not know how long the investigation would take. Once complete, it will be forwarded to the district attorney’s office for review. He declined to discuss the status of the investigation.

Wersching has been on paid administrative leave since the shooting. He has not responded to requests for interviews. The Police Officers Assn. of Huntington Beach, the union representing the city’s police officers, did not return messages Tuesday.

Wersching, who was sworn in as an officer in April 1996, is the subject of two excessive-force lawsuits pending in federal courts in Los Angeles and Santa Ana. Both are set to go to trial by September.

Neal Moore, who is representing the Police Department and Wersching in both cases, disputed all of the allegations in the suits against Wersching. Moore said Wersching did nothing wrong and will eventually be vindicated.

In one case, Edward Rezek says he was wrongfully arrested and brutalized by Wersching on Oct. 24, 1998, after he emerged from a downtown Huntington Beach theater while on a date.

Police allege that Rezek incited a riot by yelling to a crowd of youths, loudly questioning the officers’ tactics.

Rezek said that when he spotted police taking beer from the back of a pickup of underage youths, he asked his date--who he said was a psychologist for the Garden Grove Police Department--whether the officers needed a warrant.

Rezek said an officer who overheard him brought him over to the other officers. Wersching, he said, lunged at him without warning, took him to the back of a downtown substation, handcuffed him and arrested him for resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and being under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

Rezek denied he was drinking that night and said he has never used illegal drugs.

“I pleaded with him not to beat me up,” Rezek said Tuesday during a phone interview from his office at Boeing in Huntington Beach. “I was crying and I was terrified because he was treating me this way. All he did was laugh.”

In the second case, Brandon Matteson said he was wrongly arrested on public drunkenness charges Oct. 26, 1997, after a bar fight involving several of his friends. Matteson, an auto mechanic now living in Denver, said Tuesday that he was trying to take one of his friends for medical help when Wersching tackled him from behind in the parking lot of the bar, then slammed him into the ground and handcuffed him.

“He put me in his car. He told us we were not being arrested, but just detained,” Matteson said Tuesday. “But we were fingerprinted and photographed, which is about as arrested as you can get.”

Police say they were simply responding to calls to break up a fight at the bar and followed standard procedures.

Moore cited Rezek’s criminal background, noting he was convicted as a minor of armed robbery and served time in a prison camp.

“I think it speaks to the question of his credibility and attitude about the police,” Moore said.

Federico Castelan Sayre, the Newport Beach attorney who has filed a $15-million claim against Huntington Beach police on behalf of Saldivar’s family, described Wersching as an officer with a history of using excessive force.

Wersching also was sued by two of his colleagues--a married couple--over a 1998 off-duty car accident that occurred after a group of officers got together to play softball and drink, attorneys say. That case was settled in November 1999 for an undisclosed sum.