A 25-year-old man from Valencia is suing Los Angeles County, several L.A. County deputies, hired security guards at a Santa Clarita bar as well as the bar itself after an alleged beating by three off-duty deputies on Thanksgiving last year that left him with serious injuries.
The Nov. 27 incident unfolded at about 1:30 a.m. outside The Break Room bar in the 22600 block of Lyons Avenue.
In a complaint obtained by the Los Angeles Times, the alleged victim, Parker Seitz, had reportedly gone to the bar with several friends after a Friendsgiving dinner celebrating the 25-year-old’s purchase of a first home.
Seitz and his attorney, Josh Stambaugh, claim that three off-duty L.A. deputies, now identified as Randy Austin, Nicholas Hernandez and a third unidentified deputy, began harassing the 25-year-old shortly after his arrival at the bar at around 10:30 p.m.
According to the complaint, Austin is accused of repeatedly trying to grab Seitz’s sunglasses from the top of his head. At around 1:36 a.m., right after Seitz left the bar, Hernandez, in a “rude and offensive manner,” knocked the sunglasses off the 25-year-old’s head, prompting a short-lived “altercation,” The Times reported.
The complaint alleges that 10 minutes later, “suddenly and without justification,” Austin punched Seitz and knocked him to the ground before then beating and stomping him, along with the other two deputies, while he was on the ground.
Bloodied and beaten, Seitz was at a nearby hospital receiving treatment for a fractured jaw, a punctured lung and a bruised collarbone, when he and his lawyer claim then LASD Santa Clarita sheriff’s station Captain Justin Diez and Deputy Richard Wyatt violated his constitutional and civil rights and defamed him as they attempted to intimidate and cover up the alleged assault.
Diez, according to The Times, was promoted in April this year to head up the LASD’s North Patrol Division.
The complaint also alleges that Deputy Wyatt told one of Seitz’s friends that the 25-year-old had thrown the first punch and that while in the hospital, he had been unruly. Seitz denies both allegations.
Diez then reportedly called the 25-year-old’s father, Ryan Sietz, and said that his son started a fight with off-duty deputies but that if he let Diez handle the issue, he “would make the situation go away,” according to the complaint, which alleges the call was an attempt to cover up the incident and intimidate Seitz from pressing charges or making claims against the county or the deputies.
In a Dec. 2 email, LASD told The Times that they were taking the allegations seriously, that an internal investigation had been launched and that the three deputies had been relieved of duty pending the investigation.
While the department has not responded to the allegations in the complaint, officials told The Times that any violations of the department’s standards of conduct will be addressed and that if there’s evidence to support Seitz’s claims, appropriate action will be taken.
“Parker Seitz was violently attacked by off-duty Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputies, under the watchful eye of security guards contracted by a local business,” Josh Stambaugh, an attorney for Seitz, said in a statement. “He suffered serious injuries and, as we allege in our lawsuit, members and leaders of the LASD then attempted to conceal the truth of the attack and evade accountability on behalf of the organization.”
Seitz and his attorney are seeking unspecified damages from the county, LASD, the deputies, private security guards and The Break Room bar in the federal lawsuit.
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