Off-Duty Cop Sentenced for Baseball Game Attack

An off-duty police officer from central California has been sentenced to nine months in jail, three years formal probation, and anger management classes for throwing a man down cement stairs and fracturing his skull at a baseball playoff game.

David Myles Hackman, 36, Los Banos, was convicted by a jury on Dec. 3, 2008, of one felony count of battery causing serious bodily injury.

According to prosecutors, on Oct. 6, 2004, Anaheim Angels fans Daniel S. and his brother, Chris S., were at Angel Stadium for the baseball playoff game against the Boston Red Sox. After the end of the game, Daniel S. and Chris S. were exiting toward the stairs. Just before turning onto the stairs, Chris S. tapped Hackman, a Red Sox fan, on the head with an inflatable “thunder stick.”

Hackman, an off-duty San Benito Deputy Sheriff, became angry and mistakenly believed that Daniel S. had been the one to tap him. Hackman followed Daniel S. up the stairs, grabbed him by the back of the shirt with one hand and by the throat with the other, and threw him backwards down the cement steps. Hackman then ran down toward the injured victim, who was lying on the ground, and kicked him in the leg.

The defendant fled the scene but was later detained by stadium security. Daniel S. suffered skull and vertebrae injuries and was treated at UCI Medical Center.