A guy walks into a bar with his cousin, and they sit next to a lady warming another barstool. At some point, the guy takes out a knife and stabs it into the bar. The bartender says there will be none of that, pulls the knife out of the bar and walks away with it. So the guy takes out a handgun, places it on the bar and points its barrel at the lady he does not even know.
The punchline is after the jump . . .
]
The Orange County District Attorney's Office says all of the above is not a joke but that it really happened Thursday at Turc's Cocktails on PCH and Anderson in Sunset Beach.
Darryl Lee Powers, 49, of La
Palma, has now been charged with brandishing a firearm, and he could get from 90 days to a year in jail if he is convicted of the charges against him.
Here's the kicker: Powers was off-duty from his job as a Hermosa Beach
Fire Department arson investigator.
The OCDA statement on the charges follows:
August 23, 2010
OFF-DUTY FIRE DEPARTMENT ARSON INVESTIGATOR CHARGED WITH BRANDISHING GUN AT WOMAN IN BAR
WESTMINSTER – An off-duty arson investigator with the Hermosa Beach Fire
Department has been charged with brandishing a firearm at a woman
sitting next to him in a bar in Sunset Beach. Darryl Lee Powers, 49, La
Palma, was charged Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010, with one misdemeanor count
of brandishing a firearm capable of being concealed upon a person in a
public place. If convicted, he faces a sentence ranging from 90 days up
to one year in jail. Powers is scheduled to be arraigned Sept. 24, 2010,
at the West Justice Center in Westminster. The time and Department are
to be determined.
At approximately 9:15 p.m. on July 7, 2010, Powers is accused of being
at Turc's Bar in Sunset Beach having drinks with his cousin. The
defendant is accused of taking out a knife and stabbing it into the bar
in front of him. Victim Kimberly D., who did not know the defendant, was
sitting next to him at the bar.
A bartender took the knife and told the defendant that he could not have
a knife at the bar. When the bartender walked away, Powers is accused
of taking a firearm from his pocket and putting in on the bar with the
barrel pointing at Kimberly D. The frightened victim asked Powers to put
the firearm away, but he is accused of leaving it on the bar.
The victim told the bartender, who contacted the Orange County Sheriff's
Department (OCSD). Powers was contacted by OCSD as he left the bar and
released at the scene pending further investigation.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Rebecca Olivieri of the Special Prosecutions Unit is prosecuting this case.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.