Cheerleaders File Suit Against Ex Murrieta Mayor Following Suspected DUI Crash

By City News Service:

A lawsuit was filed Monday against the former mayor of Murrieta who allegedly was drunk when his pickup truck rear-ended another vehicle Oct. 16, injuring four high school cheerleaders on their way to a pep rally.

Alan William Long, 44, who works as a Anaheim Fire Department battalion chief, resigned as mayor last month. He was later charged with felony drunken driving, but re-elected Nov. 4.

At a news conference Monday, Rozette Dewart said her granddaughter, Melissa Reynolds, suffered a “spinal fracture.”

“She’s in a lot of pain,” she said. “She’s suffering tremendously.”

Reynolds’ attorney, Jean-Simon Serrano, told City News Service Reynolds had fractured neck vertebrae and was confined to a hospital bed at home.

“She can’t move her head,” he said, adding that she’s been able to get up for essentials such as using the restroom.

He said the other three girls were out of the hospital but still being treated. He declined to specify their injuries. All four suffered “severe” injuries, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the four girls— Reynolds, Chloe and Camille Rogers and Adrienna Williams— and asks for unspecified monetary damages.

”(A)s a Fire Battalion Chief, and as a ‘first-responder,’ and as a community leader and city official, (Long) had special and extensive training and knowledge of the criminality of drinking and driving and of the grave dangers to himself and others posed by his drinking and driving; but he nonetheless chose to drink until intoxicated and then operate his vehicle ... in conscious disregard of this knowledge and with reckless indifference to the danger he posed to others,” the lawsuit states.

Anaheim police Lt. Bob Dunn, who acts as spokesman for city fire department, told City News Service earlier that Long’s schedule had not changed. Dunn said Long’s superiors would be “monitoring the investigation” to determine what, if any, disciplinary action to take.

At a news conference Monday, Serrano said Long “delayed and tried to deflect any involvement of authorities, while his blood-alcohol content was too high for driving. These attempts failed.”

“Even after and with these delays and after emergency personnel had come and gone taking the injured teens to the hospital, police conducted field sobriety tests on Mr. Long. He failed these tests and was arrested for driving while intoxicated,” Serrano said.

A hearing in the lawsuit is set for May 11 in Murrieta.

Long rear-ended a sedan carrying the girls at Jefferson and Lily avenues shortly after 8 p.m. that Thursday night. Police said he showed “signs and symptoms consistent with alcohol impairment,” and his blood-alcohol content was 0.08 percent, said John Hall of the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.

Long was charged with felony driving under the influence of alcohol causing bodily injury, along with four sentence-enhancing allegations. He is scheduled to be arraigned at the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta on Dec. 11. He is free on a $50,000 bond.

At an Oct. 20 news conference, Long said that “once all facts regarding the event have been revealed and the legal due process is complete, I will be exonerated.”

Still, he said it would be better for the city if he stepped down.

Long found himself in the national spotlight over the summer, when a bus full of immigration detainees, many of them juvenile border crossers seeking asylum, were turned away by activists in Murrieta, where the federal government planned to house them.