A 29-year-old man is being accused of battery with bodily injury after allegedly punching a 20-year-old on Saturday morning on the Cal State Long Beach soccer fields.
The incident is supposed to have taken place during an unscheduled soccer match at approximately 10:45 a.m. An unidentified male player was accused by a coach of using dirty tactics to gain an advantage in a soccer match, which led to a confrontation between the two.
The 20-year-old victim was engaged in argument with the coach when another player, an unidentified 29-year-old male, interjected into the argument and subsequently punched the victim in the face. University Police speculate he was on the opposing team.
University Police were first made aware of the incident around 12:45 p.m. after they responded to a Long Beach Police Department officer’s report of a vandalized car on Atherton Street.
The LBPD officer had been flagged down by a man – thought to be the coach – whose black Chevrolet Tahoe that was parked on Atherton had one of its windows smashed.
The victim of the vandalism then alerted the Long Beach officer to the incident earlier in the day, which caused the officer to call University Police to report the alleged altercation.
By the time police officers had arrived, the victim had left the fields and driven himself to the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Bellflower where he was diagnosed with a fractured jaw.
University Police Capt. Fernando Solorzano stated that the incident was also considered to be assault with a deadly weapon, as the man’s fist inflicted grave bodily injury on the victim, which can lead to severe injury. According to the California Penal Code PEN Section 243, “Battery is punishable by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year or imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four years” when it is “committed against any person and serious bodily injury is inflicted.”
University Police had confirmed the players, coach and teams involved in the incident were in no way affiliated with CSULB, and were unable to identify the exact teams or organizations that were using the fields at the time.
LBSU Athletics Department Events Scheduling Coordinator Cameron Ungar, who handles the outside rentals of campus sports facilities, told the Daily Forty-Niner that there was no record of anyone using the fields on Saturday morning apart from several CSULB fraternities.
However, Interfraternity Council Adviser and Coordinator of Greek Life Caitlin Roberts confirmed that there had been no reports of any incidents within any of the fraternities playing soccer on Saturday.
Solorzano appealed to the CSULB community to make full use of the campus police due to the fact that they were not called to the original incident at 10:45 am.
“The beauty of dialling 911 on campus is that it will come directly to us… If anyone sees anything happen we can respond immediately,” Solorzano said. “By the time we got the call on Saturday, the victim had already left the scene and it was far too late.”
