Recordings released by the San Benito County Sheriff’s Office
show that the department knew about the large group of Vagos
Motorcycle Club members gathering in the Bolado Park area before
the incident Sept. 4 involving allegations they pointed guns at an
out-of-town woman and her family and friends. A sheriff’s spokesman
acknowledged after the release of the recordings that a discussion
between that citizen and a 911 dispatcher was a ‘misunderstanding’
but he also said that dispatcher
– who contended the caller’s story was ‘super sketch’ – did his
job appropriately.
Editor’s Note: Please be advised there is some explicit language in this audio. It is included to give listeners the full context of the conversations.
Recordings released by the San Benito County Sheriff’s Office show that the department knew about the large group of Vagos Motorcycle Club members gathering in the Bolado Park area before the incident Sept. 4 involving allegations they pointed guns at an out-of-town woman and her family and friends.
A sheriff’s spokesman also acknowledged after the release of the recordings that a discussion between that citizen and a 911 dispatcher was a “misunderstanding.”
Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Roy Iler contended, on the other hand, that the county dispatcher acted appropriately. He also said the sheriff’s office after the report later sent deputies to do “security checks” and he noted how authorities could not respond immediately without more specific information. Iler said the biker gang members “have rights” and deputies could not “put everyone up against the wall” and search the Vagos bikers.
The audio from a series of phone calls to 911 about the Labor Day Weekend incident revealed that visitor Terri Beam asked dispatchers to send deputies to the area at least seven times. The dispatcher tried to gather information from Beam throughout the five-minute conversation before that dispatcher eventually closed the phone call by having Beam confirm she didn’t want contact. The caller, though, did ask again for a response from authorities.
The incident took place at the southern end of Bolado Park, at an area across the street called Little Bolado Park where the Vagos members had been camping.
The San Benito County Sheriff’s Office released the recordings of the seven phones calls about the incident after the Free Lance requested them. They include two conversations between Beam and dispatchers and a series of brief conversations between dispatchers and members of the sheriff’s office, along with a call the following day from another concerned neighbor who was distressed about the lacking response.
Beam placed her first call to 911 around 10:30 p.m.
“Somebody needs to check out this situation,” Beam said repeatedly.
In the same conversation, Beam said she wanted contact by deputies, while the dispatcher acknowledged the incident, as reported, qualifies as a crime.
“Yes, that would be good,” Beam said, regarding a response, “because they were telling us to ‘shut the (expletive) up’ and that was not a good situation.”
Throughout the call, the dispatcher asked Beam how many guns were involved and if she wished to press charges.
“I don’t want to file any reports. I want it to be just taken care of,” she said. “I don’t know what filing a report would be.”
Beam told the Free Lance last week that she didn’t want to press charges due to fear of retribution. Beam could not be reached immediately before publication of this story.
The dispatcher asked her if she wanted to get in contact with an officer and she said “no”.
Beam said that only one biker pointed a rifle at her before being corrected over the phone from a family member saying there were five to eight bikers who were pointing rifles at the group.
When asked, the dispatcher told her near the end of the conversation that no deputies were being sent to the area yet.
“Not right now. Mam, we have emergencies all over town right now,” the dispatcher said. “We’re trying, but, so far, I don’t even have enough to send my deputies to, because they wouldn’t be fit at this point. They would have more questions to ask. But I need to know where to send them.”
Iler, the sheriff’s office spokesman, called the situation a “misunderstanding” between Beam and the dispatchers.
“It seems like she thinks she told them she filed a report, but she clearly doesn’t,” Iler said. “I don’t know.”
Iler contended that despite cutting the call short and not getting all the information needed to send deputies into the area, the dispatcher did his job.
“He has to get all the critical information,” Iler said. “He is going to ask the questions he needs to get the critical information before he is going to send a deputy there.”
Another recording between the dispatcher and Sgt. Tom Keylon outlined the decision against immediately searching for the Vagos members after Beam’s call.
“OK. And, umm, I mean her story was super sketch and kept changing, but, umm, yeah she said, that, I think she ended up saying one of them had the gun pointed at her is a rifle, and others had rifles and handguns,” the dispatcher said. “And then, umm, she wouldn’t tell, she couldn’t tell me her address and then said that she didn’t want contact anymore.”
Keylon responded by telling the dispatcher to “clear it for now.”
“I’m not going to send guys in to 100 of the Vagos,” Keylon said.
The sheriff’s office later sent deputies to the area just to do a “security check,” Iler said. He said deputies couldn’t do any more than that because they didn’t have probable cause to search every member of the Vagos.
“We can’t just put everyone up against the wall and search them,” Iler said. “They have rights.”
Iler added that sheriff’s officials didn’t “see the elements in the 911 tapes” to search the area.
But deputies were sent to the area to do security checks throughout the weekend, including multiple times after Beam’s initial call, Iler said.
Deputies visited the area six to eight times throughout the weekend but needed more information to make contact with the bikers about the Sept. 4 incident, Iler said.
The suspected crime falls under Penal Code 417, or brandishing a weapon, which is a misdemeanor, Iler said. The department also concluded that adding a false imprisonment charge, a felony, to the incident “stretched the law.”
Said Sheriff Curtis Hill last week: “I can’t send my deputies out there (to confront the suspected culprits) to blow things up on a misdemeanor when the crime wasn’t committed in our presence.”
Beam called back the dispatcher around 45 minutes after the first call to “check up” on her initial report, and in that call, just less than two minutes in length, she asked for contact from a deputy.
Beam and the sheriff’s office confirmed that they talked over the phone during the weekend, but the calls weren’t recorded because they were over cell phones.
At noon Sept. 5, the bikers were planning to leave, but deputies cleared them out early, Iler said.
San Benito County Emergency Services Manager Jim Clark did not immediately return calls before press time.
Look back for more on this story and reaction.
