Officer in Fatal Shooting Faced Earlier Lawsuits

A 26-year-old Huntington Beach officer who shot and killed a teenage 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 was identified Tuesday as the patrolman who opened fire on Antonio Saldivar, 18, early May 5 after a short foot chase.

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 mostly Latino neighborhood, including demonstrations outside City Hall.

Wersching has been on paid administrative leave since the shooting and has not responded to requests for interviews. The Police Officers Assn. of Huntington Beach--the union representing police officers--did not respond to messages left Tuesday.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which is investigating the shooting, identified Wersching in response to a Public Records Act request from news organizations. Huntington Beach police and the city attorney’s office initially withheld his name, citing threats against him.

They agreed to release the name only after becoming convinced that there was a legal obligation to do so, Lt. Chuck Thomas, department spokesman, 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,” he said.

Sheriff’s investigators also released a photograph Tuesday 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 further review. He declined to discuss the status of the investigation.

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 lawsuits’ allegations. He 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 leaving a theater on a date.

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

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

Rezek said an officer who overheard him took him over to the other officers. Wersching, the plaintiff said, lunged at him without warning, took him to the back of a substation, handcuffed him and arrested him on suspicion of resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and being under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Rezek denied drinking that night and said he has never used illegal drugs.

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

Rezek’s lawsuit is tentatively set to go to trial in June.

In the second case, Brandon Matteson said he was wrongly arrested Oct. 26, 1997, on suspicion of public drunkenness 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 to get medical aid when Wersching tackled him from behind in the bar’s parking lot, slammed him to the ground and handcuffed him.

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

Police say officers followed standard procedures.

Police Department attorney Moore said Rezek 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,” he said.