Editorial: You owe another $5 for excessive force by L.A. County sheriff’s deputies. Pay up or face arrest warrants.
“There’s one thing we have in common,” says Jeff Wechsel, the owner of the Los Angeles Sports Arena, where he has held a boxing card in the past. “We’re both big-time sports fans. And we both love to gamble, mostly on sports. We play the horses and the poker all the way up to the ponies. … We do it all, every day, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”
Last Wednesday (March 11), Wechsel, of West Hollywood, was in Pasadena with his father as he waited to play in a game of five card draw in the Sports Arena itself. He was joined by a colleague, Jim Koppell, the athletic director at the University of California, who was there to greet the patrons.
Koppell was in the lobby watching the big game as Wechsel and his father played cards in a back room off to the side. Wechsel looked up and saw a man in orange uniform, whom Wechsel recognized as an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy who had come to talk to the other fans at the game. Wechsel looked over in surprise. The deputy, whom he did not recognize, said he was there to serve some warrants for assault.
“The other spectators who were watching the game were totally shocked,” Wechsel remembers. “They all knew the area, and this deputy had never been to the Sports Arena. I was like, if a person can’t keep his hands to himself, then I’ve found a guy who can’t.”
He looked over at his father, as well, and said, “So you’re going to play cards at the Sports Arena?”
“He said, ‘Man, I don’t know if I can play with you and your dad anymore. I can’t go out there and be a danger to
