| For Immediate Release Case# 04NF3856
December 3, 2008 |
Susan Kang Schroeder Public Affairs Counsel Office: 714-347-8408 Cell: 714-292-2718 Farrah Emami |
OFF-DUTY POLICE CONVICTED OF FRACTURING MAN’S SKULL BY THROWING HIM DOWN STAIRS AT ANAHEIM BASEBALL GAME
SANTA ANA – An off-duty police officer from central California was found guilty by a jury today of throwing a man down cement stairs and fracturing his skull at a baseball play-off game. David Myles Hackman, 36, Los Banos, was convicted of one felony count of battery causing serious bodily injury. He faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison at his sentencing on Jan. 9, 2009 in Department C-39, Central Justice Center, Santa Ana.
On Oct. 6, 2004, Anaheim Angels fans Daniel S. and his brother, Chris S., were at Angel Stadium for the baseball play-off game against the Boston Red Sox. After the end of the game, Daniel S. and Chris S. were exiting toward the stairs. Just before turning onto the stairs, Chris S. tapped Hackman, a Red Sox fan, on the head with an inflatable “thunder stick.” Hackman, an off-duty San Benito Deputy Sheriff, became angry and mistakenly believed that Daniel S. had been the one to tap him.
Hackman followed Daniel S. up the stairs, grabbed him by the back of the shirt with one hand and by the throat with the other, and threw him backwards down the cement steps. Hackman then ran down toward the injured victim, who was lying on the ground, and kicked him in the leg. The defendant fled the scene but was later detained by stadium security. Daniel S. suffered skull and vertebrae injuries and was treated at UCI Medical Center.
Deputy District Attorney Israel Claustro of the Special Prosecutions Unit is prosecuting this case.
###