DA dismisses Vestal case
Federal judge will hear civil rights suit against deputies
District Attorney Gerald Shea said Tuesday his office will not prosecute sheriff's deputies for the Aug. 18, 2003, death of Jay Anthony Vestal.
Shea concluded that "the evidence in the case does not present a basis for criminal prosecution."
An FBI investigation continues, as does an internal sheriff's probe into possible procedural lapses by the deputies.
Shea's investigation, based partly on video and audiotapes of at least some of the incident, suggested that Vestal's struggles, and his apparent use of meth and cocaine, contributed to his death.
The deputies-Geoffery Dayton, Rex Reece, Michael Murphy, and Neil Clayton-have been on paid administrative leave since the incident. They will return to work Sunday.
Two other officers, Mark Gunter and David Nottingkamper, were placed on leave for several weeks but were determined to have played only a peripheral role in the fatal incident.
According to a press release distributed by Shea, Deputy District Attorney Tim Covello claimed deputies did not strike, kick, or choke Vestal.
A pathologist who examined Vestal's body termed the death "agitated delirium"-a name given to a controversial condition allegedly caused by a neurological disorder.
A Los Angeles federal judge, meanwhile, will hear the start of a civil rights case brought by survivors of Vestal on Jan. 25, 2005.
U.S. Central District Court Judge John F. Walter set a 9 a.m. kickoff for the trial after listening to arguments of lawyers in the case Monday.
Vestal, 36, died in his boxer shorts with his face in the dust outside his home after being restrained by the deputies.
The 1:40 a.m. incident was triggered by a reported disturbance at the trailer park where Vestal lived with his girlfriend and her son.
Deputies subsequently learned that Vestal had an outstanding warrant for a misdemeanor. They took him to the ground, and shortly thereafter he was dead.
The lawsuit alleges that the deputies used excessive force in a situation where no force was needed. The sheriff's department said Vestal died of "restraint asphyxia."
Jude Basile, a San Luis Obispo attorney representing Vestal's children, told Judge Walter that his case could be ready by the end of this year, and that he could present it in its entirety in five days.
Terence Cassidy, a Sacramento attorney retained to represent San Luis Obispo County, argued that he needed 28 days for trial and couldn't be prepared before September 2005.
Basile seems to be developing a specialty in representing people injured or killed in confrontations with law enforcement.
He represented Gerald Bernales, a 22-year-old Los Osos man who suffered permanent brain damage after being hit in the head with a steel flashlight by a sheriff's deputy in the aftermath of a routine traffic stop. County taxpayers and insurers paid Bernales $2.1 million in an out-of-court settlement, the highest such award in county history.
Basile now is working on behalf of the family of Keith Yecny, the 23-year-old San Luis Obispo man who died March 13. Yecny, who had been in the custody of sheriff's department jailers for only hours, lingered in a coma for five days, shackled to his bed in intensive care. He never regained consciousness.
Yecny's family asked Basile "to find out what happened to their son," he said. "There are lots of unanswered questions." ³
-DANIEL BLACKBURN
Catholics buy AG and French hospitals
Catholic Healthcare West, the same nonprofit that runs Santa Maria's Marian Medical Center, now owns both the Arroyo Grande Community Hospital and French Hospital Medical Center in San Luis Obispo. The selling price has been estimated at $30 million.
Charles Cova, president of Marian, said: "The two [hospitals] really had reached a point where the turnover in management and ownership was really starting to create an issue. And the communities were looking for stability in . those two hospitals."
Cova was referencing the hospitals' tumultuous past when a previous owner, the bankruptcy-ridden Vista, sold out to Universal Health Services. Now, a short time later, Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) is the proud new owner.
"The first thing we wanted to do was make sure it was a fit: Does it make sense for CHW to own these hospitals? Is this good for the community? And the answer is, absolutely," Cova said.
So the next question is, what's going to change? First off, CHW wants to provide some stability through management. It plans on creating community and fund-raising boards at each hospital, and hiring a president and CEO for each as well.
"That will be different," Cova said. "But it won't be different in a sense that the mission and the values of CHW are consistent with [what] the community needs at this point."
But not everyone agrees that CHW's values and the values of the community are the same. Some people are already questioning whether the Catholic nonprofit will honor a patient's request not to be resuscitated if they die.
Christine Lyon with Planned Parenthood said she was worried what services the hospitals would and would not be allowed to provide-such as dispensing contraceptives, performing tubal ligations and vasectomies, and performing emergency abortions.
"Our deep concern would be that the women of Arroyo Grande and SLO continue to have access to important health care services," she said. "Of course we have hope that the emergency contraception will be available to rape survivors in the emergency room. That's a big deal."
SLO city personnel slated for raises
When the San Luis Obispo City Council meets on April 6, it will decide whether to give raises to the city's administrative officer, Ken Hampian, and city attorney, Jonathan Lowell.
Karen Jenny, from the city's human resources office, said that both positions have an annual review, and based on their performance the city council can give them between a zero and 5 percent raise.
And that's regardless of the current budget climate. This week San Luis Obispo County announced a hiring freeze due to an expected loss of $11 million in state and federal funds. Lowell said that while the city itself went through the same thing several years ago, it's now in a stronger place.
"In the future, who knows, we may be facing a similar situation. But at this point we're not and that's why the council felt it was appropriate to allow [the raises] in this cycle," he said.
This week's News was compiled by Staff Writer Abraham Hyatt. He can be reached at ahyatt@newtimesslo.com.
Fall may have led to death
At about 2 a.m. on March 28, a private security guard found an unconscious male behind the businesses at 1194 Pacific St. in San Luis Obispo.
The city's police and fire personnel responded and even though they found no vital signs, transported the man to French Hospital. It was there that Adrian Dominic Brown, a 34-year-old SLO resident, was pronounced dead.
According to police reports, investigators spent the early morning hours looking for clues at the property and questioning Brown's friends. While the SLO Police still haven't formed a concrete conclusion, they think Brown was walking home after drinking at several downtown bars. While walking in the dark behind the business, it appears he tripped over or fell off an almost four-foot-high garden wall and hit his head on the sidewalk below.
Official autopsy results-including toxicology reports-won't be available for several weeks. However, police reports say it looks like the cause of death was a substantial cranial fracture.
Detective Chuck Riedel asks that anyone who spoke with Brown Saturday night to contact the San Luis Police Department at 781-7333. ³
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