Officers Cleared in Death of Man Seized in Struggle

A final coroner’s report has cleared two Huntington Beach police officers in the death of a 23-year-old man who lapsed into a coma after a struggle during his arrest, the Orange County district attorney’s office said Tuesday.

The report attributed the death of free-lance artist Mark Kevin Ross on Christmas Day, 1986, to an accidental cocaine overdose. No criminal charges will be filed against Police Officers Dan Johnson and Heather Dreyer, Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade said.

Ross fell into a coma only hours after a 7:30 p.m. traffic stop on Dec. 13. An affidavit from an investigator with the district attorney’s office said cocaine had been found in Ross’ shirt pocket and repeated assertions that Ross’ brother, Robert, had seen him ingest three to five grams of cocaine as police were making the traffic stop.

But attorney James J. Di Cesare, who represents Ross’ family, has said that two witnesses told him police struck Ross 10 to 20 times with a club, used a chokehold on him and held him at the scene of the arrest at Newland Street and Ellis Avenue for more than an hour. Di Cesare could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Veronica Joyner--Mark Ross’ girlfriend, who is eight months pregnant--did not agree with the district attorney’s findings.

“I don’t see how they came to that conclusion. If there are witnesses who said Mark was beaten, well, people don’t say those things if they weren’t true,” Joyner said Tuesday.

She said she had contacted Ross’ parents on Tuesday, but they had not been notified of the findings.

Joyner said she and Ross had once set a wedding date for January, 1987, but they had postponed it until July.

In a prepared statement, Huntington Beach Police Chief Grover L. (Bill) Payne said Tuesday that he had reviewed the district attorney’s findings, “and it is very clear from that investigation that there was no criminal misconduct on the part of the officers.”

Payne said an internal investigation by his department “shows also that there was no violation of departmental rules and regulations.”

Huntington Beach police had asked the district attorney’s office to conduct an investigation, as is customary when a person dies in police custody.

Officers Johnson and Dreyer could not be reached for comment. A department spokeswoman said they both remain on duty.

Wade said Ross’ “death was not caused by any misconduct on the part of any Huntington Beach officers, and . . . insufficient evidence of criminal misconduct exists to prosecute any of the police personnel involved in the incident.”

The coroner’s final report found the cause of death to be accidental “due to the ingestion of a lethal amount of cocaine,” Wade said.

Pathologists determined that the injuries Ross suffered in his struggle with police would not have caused his death, Wade said.

Based on witnesses’ accounts and other reports of the incident, he said, it “did not appear there was going to be criminal liability.”

“ut you never can tell. Sometimes the physical evidence in the case can be contrary. That was not the case here.”