Shot linebacker to sit out season
By Leslie Wolf Branscomb
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
September 5, 2006
Chargers players and coaches visited wounded linebacker Steve Foley in the hospital yesterday as details of the bizarre shooting Sunday morning came slowly from tight-lipped authorities.
The Chargers announced that Foley, who was shot by an off-duty Coronado police officer at 3:41 a.m. Sunday near his Poway home, will not play this season. Team officials placed Foley on injured reserve and said that because his injuries weren't related to playing football, he will forfeit his $775,000 salary for this season.
Officer ID'd
Authorities on Tuesday released the name of the off-duty Coronado police officer who shot and wounded Charger Steve Foley on Sunday. The officer was identified as Aaron Mansker, who has been with the department since August 2005.
Foley, 30, was recovering yesterday in the surgical intensive care unit at Sharp Memorial Hospital, protected by two private security officers. He declined to be interviewed, but one visitor, former teammate Akbar Gbaja-Biamilla, said upon leaving that Foley was “doing good.”
Also visiting Foley yesterday were coach Marty Schottenheimer, Chargers Director of Security Dick Lewis, head trainer James Collins and a team doctor.
Police officials and Foley's neighbors spent the day recounting details of events that began when an off-duty police officer said he saw Foley's Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme weaving in traffic just north of downtown San Diego at Washington Street on state Route 163.
Sheriff's homicide Lt. Dennis Brugos said the officer, who has not been identified, was on his way home from work when he spotted Foley's car. The officer was not wearing a uniform and was driving an unmarked black Mazda sedan.
After seeing the Oldsmobile nearly sideswipe other cars, Brugos said the officer called for backup as he followed Foley on state Route 163 near Route 52.
On Saturday night, Foley had attended a players dinner at Morton's Steakhouse in the downtown Gaslamp Quarter. The dinner, which was not a team-sanctioned event, was a traditional fete where new players treat veteran players to a lavish meal. The bill for last year's dinner, held at Pamplemousse Grille, was $32,000. Players said most people left Saturday's dinner around 10:30 p.m.
Brugos said the Coronado officer tried to pull Foley over twice en route to Poway. A Sheriff's Department news release said the officer pulled up alongside Foley at a stoplight and identified himself. Foley acknowledged the officer but drove on, according to the Sheriff's Department.
At the second stop, Foley got out of his car and approached the officer, but upon seeing his gun said, “That's a BB gun,” according to the news release. Foley's female companion, Lisa Maree Gaut, reportedly stepped out of the car, and yelled an unintelligible comment at the officer before the couple drove off.
The third stop took place on a cul-de-sac near Foley's home on Travertine Court. The officer got out of the car, said his gun was real, and fired a warning shot into some bushes against an embankment at the end of the cul-de-sac, according to the Sheriff's Department.
Gaut, now behind the wheel, reportedly drove straight at the officer, who fired two shots. One hit the Oldsmobile's windshield on the passenger side and the other hit the car's radiator, according to neighbors who saw the car afterward. Gaut was uninjured.
Foley then came toward the officer and “made a reaching move toward his pants or waistband,” Brugos said. The officer fired at Foley several times before he fell.
Brugos said yesterday he couldn't disclose how many shots were fired while the investigation was ongoing.
Kent Goldman, who lives two doors from Foley, said he heard Foley's car “revving, revving, revving and a pop, pop.” He said he recognized the distinctive sound of Foley's Oldsmobile with its high-performance engine.
“A few seconds later, I heard it revving again and I heard more rapid pops, five or six,” Goldman said.
Within seconds, it seemed, the street was flooded with a dozen or more police cars, Goldman said.
Rick Jennings, Foley's next-door neighbor, said he ran outside after hearing shots. Jennings said he heard a woman in Foley's car screaming, “No, oh my God, stop!”
“Then I heard four more shots,” Jennings said.
When more police arrived, Jennings said he heard them firmly but deliberately tell the woman several times: “Put your foot on the brake and shut off the car.”
Brugos said yesterday he didn't know whether Foley had any kind of a weapon.
Foley has not been charged, but that could change, Brugos said.
Gaut, 25, was booked into the Las Colinas women's jail in Santee on suspicion of driving under the influence and assault with a deadly weapon. Her bail was set at $17,500 and a court hearing scheduled for Thursday in El Cajon.
A jail booking clerk said there is a warrant for Gaut's arrest issued by the Solano County Superior Court in Northern California, with bail set at $25,000. The charges Gaut faces there were unknown yesterday.
A relative of Gaut's, reached at home in Linda Vista, said the family was trying to raise bail to free Gaut.
The woman, who wouldn't identify herself, said they learned of Gaut's arrest via news accounts. “We really don't know what happened,” she said.
She said the family did not know Foley and didn't know what Gaut's relationship was to the football player.
Some of Foley's neighbors were skeptical of versions of the shooting they heard and read in news reports.
“I want to hear his side,” Jennings said. “All we've heard so far is the police side.”
Jennings said Foley was a model neighbor who lived quietly. “I think late for him was 8 o'clock,” he said.
Goldman said the football star is a hit with neighborhood children. He said Foley told his son that he eats chocolate the night before every game, so his son started making brownies for Foley.
Neighbor Karen Lammers said Foley's house was a popular stop for Halloween trick-or-treaters because he gave out jumbo candy bars. “He's always smiling,” Lammers said.
Foley had been arrested in April for allegedly resisting arrest, battery on a police officer and being drunk in public after an altercation on a University City street. The District Attorney announced last week that Foley will not be prosecuted for that altercation.
Responding to rumors that Foley might have believed he was being carjacked, Foley's agent, David Levine, said, “It sure sounds like it. . . . The circumstances would seem to coincide with somebody not thinking he was dealing with a police officer.”
Foley's Oldsmobile, purple inside and out, had recently been restored and was one of two vintage cars he owned, neighbors said. The other is an orange Chevrolet Impala Super Sport.
Brugos said he didn't know whether the officer showed his badge when identifying himself to Foley.
Everett Bobbitt, the attorney who will be representing the officer, said, “There's no legal requirement” that a badge be shown when an off-duty officer is pulling over a motorist.
Bobbitt would not comment on the badge, but he said an officer who feels the need to use his weapon can't show his badge at the same time.
“If you're holding your gun, you're not going to do that, because the proper way to hold a gun is with two hands,” Bobbitt said.
As for firing a warning shot, Bobbitt and Brugos said they didn't think it was specifically prohibited.
“Generally, you're not going to (fire a warning shot), but you've got to be in the officer's shoes,” Bobbitt said. The investigators “will look at the whole procedure in context,” he said.
Coronado Mayor Tom Smisek said the officer who shot Foley has been put on administrative leave, “which is the normal procedure.”
A.J. Smith, the Chargers' general manager, said nothing has been decided regarding Foley's vacant roster position. The Chargers do not have to replace Foley with a linebacker, because they are carrying an extra linebacker. Shaun Phillips will replace Foley as the starting weak-side linebacker.
After several incidents in Cincinnati in 1999 and 2000, where he played for the Bengals, Foley was enrolled in an NFL alcohol-treatment program.
“I am not happy about the off-the-field incidents,” Smith said. “Steve and I have had discussions in the past. I am confident in the future we will have a discussion. But right now, at this point in time, Steve's health is the most important thing.”
Staff writers Ray Huard, Kevin Acee, Jim Trotter and Tanya Sierra contributed to this report.
he only got 4 months, yet if it was you or me, we woulda gotten 4 or 5 years. maybe more
here, here
