HOLIDAY PATROLS
The Hermosa Beach Police Department plans to beef up its patrols of the beach and downtown over the Fourth of July weekend with 18 additional officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on horseback, motorcycle and foot patrol. Fines for public alcohol violations will be tripled to $300 beginning Saturday, June 30, and lasting through the end of the day July 4.
After the Redondo Beach fireworks end in the evening July 4, floodlights positioned at Pier Plaza will encourage the public to vacate the plaza. Additional taxi cabs will be available to safely transport people home, a city press release said.
INVESTIGATION FINDINGS
Hermosa Beach police Sgt. Bob Higgins said the woman accusing the Los Angeles Kings’ Drew Doughty of sexual assault refused to make a phone call to Doughty in order to discuss the incident after she reported it to police.
“She didn’t want to cooperate with that, and that makes it very difficult in these kind of cases,” Higgins said.
Such a “pretext” phone call is recorded by police and potentially used as evidence in the case.
“It’s one of our most valuable tools, if not the most valuable, in these ‘he said-she said’ cases,” Higgins said. ”Minus that, it makes it a very difficult case to prosecute.”
Hermosa Beach police investigated the incident, which happened and was reported March 1. Then police handed over their findings to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office to determine whether or not to prosecute Doughty, Higgins said.
A decision on the case is expected soon, a spokesperson at the district attorney’s office said. The victim’s attorney, Gloria Allred, declined to comment.
The 22-year-old defenseman from Ontario, Canada, was the second overall pick by the Kings in 2008 and played in 20 games during the Kings’ Stanley Cup championship playoff run.
Higgins said Doughty and the 25-year-old woman met at the bar, and it’s unclear whether the alleged sexual assault happened at Doughty’s residence or the victim’s.
“It’s an issue of [whether there was] consent, and there’s a question of whether sexual contact even occurred,” Higgins said.
SUBMIT 4th PHOTOS
A photo gallery of reader-submitted Independence Day celebration photographs will be featured online at easyreadernews.com and in the print edition for the upcoming week. Submit your red white and blue shots by Monday to ed@easyreader.info to be considered. ER
