UPDATE: A bar patron was sentenced today to four years in state prison for killing another customer in a bar by hitting him in the head with a pool cue.
Richard Lee Thompson, 48, of Lakewood, who was found guilty by a jury on Jan. 13 of killing another customer at Breaker's Bar in Cypress by hitting him in the head with a pool cue, was sentenced today to four years in prison, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
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Thompson, who was convicted on one felony count of involuntary manslaughter by an unlawful act, had started an argument over a beer with 44-year-old Steven Toole at Breaker's on March 17, 2008.
During the bar fight, Toole pushed Thompson to the floor. Standing up, Thompson grabbed a nearby pool cue and swung it at Toole, striking him once in the head with the fat end. Toole immediately collapsed.
The victim was taken to a local hospital, where he was placed on life support and died the next day.
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.