As many as 100 names could be added to the list of eight alleged members in the class-action civil rights lawsuit filed Tuesday by surfers Cory Spencer and Diana Milena Reed, according to Torrance attorney Vic Otten.
The lawsuit, which also targets the city of Palos Verdes Estates and Police Chief Jeff Kepley, aims to have the Bay Boys classified as a criminal street gang, banned from gathering together, and ordered to pay fines and compensation for emotional and physical damages.
It also alleges Reed was sexually harassed by the Bay Boys and that one of the men recorded one of the incidents on video.
Though the Bay Boys have faced a few lawsuits over the years, Otten said the federal class action — which he believes is the first of its kind targeting surfing localism — packs a powerful punch.
“No one’s ever done this before the way we’re doing it, and the goal is to make this public beach public. Lunada Bay will never be the same again,” said Otten, an environmental attorney and surfer who grew up on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and in Redondo Beach.
Otten and other members of the legal team, including Northern California firm Hanson Bridgett, LLP, have been working on the case pro bono for months, he said.
“Everybody has a right in this state to be able to go to the beach, and you’re not going to have a bunch of thugs in P.V. deny that right,” Otten said.
Tyson Shower of Hanson Bridgett LLP said if the court certifies the lawsuit as a class action, anyone who claims to have been harassed by the Bay Boys over the years could join as plaintiffs.
“I think there are more facts to support this lawsuit and the injunction really is to open up access to that beach, and that has a lot more momentum,” he said. “This is a very serious attempt.”
Michael Sisson, an attorney who sued members of the Bay Boys in 1995 and 2002, could not be reached Wednesday.
But he told the Daily Breeze last year that he could not get a gang injunction against them because the Palos Verdes Estates police claimed they did not know the identities of the Bay Boys.
“The city took the position that they didn’t know who these people are,” Sisson said, noting that the LAPD keeps lists of gang members to enforce injunctions.
Otten said extensive documentation identifying the members and a federal judge’s order would mean the department would have no choice but to enforce an injunction.
Additionally, the lawsuit quotes a police officer who was secretly recorded telling journalists from the Guardian newspaper that police “know them all.”
The footage sparked a wave of new interest and media attention in the Bay Boys.
In a statement, Palos Verdes Estates City Manager Tony Dahlerbruch said the city and its Police Department are “committed to protecting the safety of all those who live, visit, shop and recreate in the city.”
Dahlerbruch said police will continue to monitor and enforce the law in Lunada Bay. Last year, Kepley said the department stepped up patrols and efforts to discourage localism.
“We understand that a class-action lawsuit was filed,” Dahlerbruch said. “The city has not had a chance to evaluate the allegations and will respond accordingly.”
Several surfers named in the lawsuit have criminal records, and three are linked to cases that recently made headlines.
A juvenile listed as a Bay Boy appears to be the same teen who recently pleaded guilty to his role in the brutal September beating of a Lunada Bay liquor store owner.
The boy and his father — also named in the suit as a Bay Boy — are being sued by the store owner, who alleges the attack was a racially motivated hate crime.
Another defendant, 27-year-old Michael Rae Papayans, pleaded not guilty last week to punching a Mets fan at Dodger Stadium in October, rendering the man unconscious. He also was arrested in January with Backstreet Boy Nick Carter during a bar fight in Florida.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Papayans’ grandmother, Sheila, called the notion that the Bay Boys are a criminal street gang “ridiculous.”
“Most of these people have been to college. They all have good jobs. This is their hobby, just like fishing and swimming,” she said. “They are not a gang. That is the most ridiculous thing for anyone to say. They are anything but a gang.”
The surfers are “good people” and do not violently defend the bay, she said, but protect it from being overrun by outsiders who lack manners, often changing clothes behind their cars on Paseo del Mar.
“When I drive down the street, I see bare butts all the time. And they are not P.V. bare butts. They are bare butts from God knows where,” she said.
Her son, who also surfs, and others would not dare taking waves before locals at precious surf spots around the world, Papayans said.
“It’s called respect. You can’t go down to the bay and think you can go to the front of the line,” she said. “Of course they get mad. … To some of these people who come from outside, they think that’s being aggressive.”
Papayans said Reed made up the sexual harassment claims after overreacting to the local surfers changing their clothes on the beach.
“They are preparing lawsuits right now against that woman,” she said.
Defendants in the case could not be reached for comment.
Staff writers Ed Pilolla and Cynthia Washicko contributed to this report.
source by dailybreeze.com
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