Surf wars: the killing that made waves

La Jolla is not the sort of place you associate with gang culture. But the brutal murder of a young man has exposed the dark side of life in this Californian surfers' paradise

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

By David Usborne

The sun still catches the plumed crests of the waves as they roll toward the beaches of Windansea and Bird Rock and the bleached hair of the ocean athletes who wait patiently to ride them. But nothing has been the same since Emery Kauanui died, his skull split in three places.

Kauanui, who moved to La Jolla with his mother from Hawaii in 1992 after Hurricane Iniki wrecked their home, was one of the best. True, he had had a few brushes with the law over the years but he was a young man brimming with optimism. His life did not end in the salty swirls he loved, but rather in the streets. He was killed by the fists of friends.

But if the manner of his death is barely debated, the wider circumstances of the assault have split the town in two. Was this a night of excessive drinking and youthful bravado that went tragically wrong or was Kauanui the victim of something more sinister: a gang murder?

As a judge in San Diego's Superior Court ponders the question at hearings this week, residents of La Jolla still struggle themselves to address it. This is a town that has all the blessings. Its history is one of hippie liberalism – spawned by its long attachment to surfing culture – even if nowadays it is more a town of well-to-do families on manicured lots, money coming in from safe jobs in computing and the internet industry.

Until last year, there had not been a murder in town for more than five years. But some already knew that beneath the "Hey dude" camaraderie darker undercurrents have long lurked. Usually it has been about protecting surfing territory. Outsiders and novices hoping to try their luck in spots where the big waves come in can sometimes be repelled by local regulars, with punches if necessary. Cliques such as the Windansea Surf Rats would sometimes carve their initials in board wax on the pavement near a break to ward off outsiders. In 1996, the writer Tom Wolfe recorded this not-so-laid-back flipside of surfer life at Windansea beach in his essay The Pump House Gang.

It wasn't too long after police started investigating the death of Kuaunui in La Jolla that they began to wonder whether this hidden world of surf-protection and group intimidation on the water's edge had begun to creep into the streets of the city above the craggy bluffs. Was it possible that the gang scourge so familiar to authorities further north in Los Angeles had been taking root in their own supposedly tranquil community, where last year the average price for a house was $3.9m (£2m).

That is exactly the contention of the prosecution at this week's hearings before Judge John Einhorn. Five men, all in their twenties, are facing charges related to the death of Kauanui, and prosecutors are arguing that the violence was born of their loyalty to a loosely bonded group of young men known as the Bird Rock Bandits.

Under California anti-gang laws, the penalties in a case like this will automatically become much stiffer if the crime is considered within the context of gang activity. Each of the defendants, if convicted, could face 20 more years in prison than would otherwise be the case.

Emery Keauiikane Kauanui Jr – his middle name means "royal" in Hawaiian – was drinking with his girlfriend, Jennifer Grasso, at the popular Brew House bar on the night of 24 May last year when things began to turn ugly. Exactly what set it off depends on who you ask. One of the defendants, Eric House, 21, may or may not have been flirting with Ms Grasso, but in any event Kauanui spilt his beer on him, intentionally or not. A scuffle broke out and the bar ordered them to leave. Ms Grasso drove her boyfriend back to his mother's apartment building on Draper Avenue. Eric House and the four other men also accused of murder – Seth Cravens, 22, Orlando Osuna, 23, Matthew Yanke, 21, and Henri "Hank" Hendricks, 22 – later decided to drive over there themselves.

Initially, the combat was between Kauanui and House. By all accounts, the Hawaiian got the better of his assailant, knocking out of one of his teeth, but then Cravens joined the fray. He landed one on Kauanui who lost his balance and fell to the concrete pavement. The young man's head "buckled up and down like a bobblehead doll" during the fight, Hendricks was later to tell police. Craven himself spoke of the head striking the pavement with a loud thump. Witnesses have described seeing the young men descend upon Kuaunui thereafter, repeatedly kicking his motionless body.

Moments later the first police officers arrived. Four of the five men had already fled the scene, but a dazed House was still outside there, shirtless and hoping to retrieve his dislodged tooth. They found Kauanui lying motionless in a pool of blood.

After gauze was applied to the back of his head, Kauanai was rushed to hospital. For two days he was alert enough to talk to his mother, though he had no memory of the fight. But doctors lost the battle to contain the swelling of his brain and after two more days he died. Five days after that, La Jolla was the scene of a "paddle-out" at Windansea beach, the sport's traditional tribute to those who lose their lives. It was the largest the town had seen.

The reaction in the community was one of horror. While the five men in court this week may be the ones who pay for what happened one year ago next week, many believe it is the whole town that is on trial too.

"How does a smart, caring community like La Jolla allow this kind of spiralling thuggish behaviour for so long without taking notice?" a local newspaper, The La Jolla Light, asked. But not everyone was so surprised. Tragedies driven by alcohol were one of the town's "dirty little secrets", said David Ponsford, a football coach at the high school. "We like to pretend it's all Hollywood-perfect in paradise in California's golden sunlight. In fact, it's like many other American cities. It's murder, in more stylish clothing."

Detectives investigating the case soon began to suspect that this was more than a saloon-bar argument that span out of control, and further inquiries led them to believe that this was a premeditated murder, a punishment deliberately dealt out by a gang that felt disrespected.

All five defendants were members of the Bird Rock Bandits. A MySpace page discovered with the gang's name as its username contained an ominous entry posted just before the Kauanui fight: "This is gonna be a ... bloodbath of a summer." Craven, who was described as the group's leader, boasted on the page that he had already killed one rival.

At this week's hearing, adjourned until Monday, the prosecution said police also found the group's initials, BRB, sprayed on walls in parts of the town and learnt how members would flash hand signs at one another forming the letter B in the air. Small-time weapons were found in the homes of some defendants including a BB gun and pocket knives of various sizes.

Although police admitted that until the killing they had not been aware of the group, individuals began to come forward with stories of having been threatened or assaulted by its members.

It will be for Judge Einhorn to determine whether all of this elevates the activities of the Bird Rock Bandits to those of an actual gang, defined by California law as a group of individuals with a common name, an identifying symbol and a commitment to law-breaking.

One former surfer-buddy of Kauanui has his doubts. "No one is dying for their gang colours here," Henry Jones said. "They were more like a bunch of kids who grew up together and thought they were bad and called themselves the Bird Rock Bandits. A couple of them have violent tendencies, and if there is a fight, they will jump into it. Alcohol aggravates that. But I'm sure nobody meant to kill anyone."

Mary Ellen Attridge, the lawyer for Cravens, told the court this week: "They are as much a gang as any fraternity." She and the other lawyers for the defence want the gang-related charges dropped. "This is not the Bloods and the Crips," she added, referring to two of the most-feared gangs in Los Angeles.

"It does not have to be," was the response of Paul Levikow, the spokesman for the San Diego district attorney's office.

"They're not standing on the corner selling crack or pimping, but they were terrorising the community. Nor is it relevant that most of the men come from well-to-do families. The law doesn't look at socioeconomic background. It looks at actions."