Cop-tosser gets a year in the clink

A Vista man who admitted felony assault on a deputy — during a confrontation more than a year ago in which he ended up with a bullet in his chest — was sentenced to time served and released from custody the same day, June 12.

As part of the plea deal, Anthony Fernando Garcia, now 21, had agreed to two years’ custody, and one felony charge was dropped — that of taking the officer’s weapon while resisting arrest. Garcia had served 385 actual days in custody, plus he got 384 days’ “credit” for a total of 769 days.

At a hearing last September, sheriff’s deputy Michelle Storms said Garcia picked her up bodily and threw her onto a concrete sidewalk after she attempted to place handcuffs on him. The deputy had responded to a call of persons smoking marijuana in the laundry room of an apartment complex in Vista on May 22, 2013.

“He basically body-slammed me on the ground,” the deputy told a judge. She described herself as 5 feet 5 inches tall and 155 pounds, and Garcia as 5 feet 8 inches tall and 230 pounds.

The deputy said she “blacked out for a moment” and then reached for her taser, but Garcia took the taser and deployed it. The darts missed the officer. She fired one round and Garcia received a bullet in his back that travelled through his spleen, liver, and lung. The bullet was surgically removed a week later, from his chest.

At the time of the incident, Garcia was out on probation for three matters. His blood tested positive for amphetamines and marijuana. Garcia reportedly told responding officers, “I just wanted to get over the fucking wall to my Mom’s apartment and fucking hide.”

A probation report states that Garcia first became known to authorities when he was 12 years old, after he lit a palm tree on fire at an elementary school. The next year, a campus supervisor caught him sharing a Playboy magazine at school, and the youth became combative and made verbal threats. That same year Garcia was caught with a bag of marijuana at school. In his 15th year, deputies broke up a fight between Garcia and his mother; the next year he was taken away after knocking his mother’s husband unconscious.

Garcia’s adult record includes arrests for burglary, petty theft, drugs, vandalism, and false ID to a police officer.

Garcia is allegedly a “documented member” of the Varrio San Marcos gang, or VSM.

According to court records, Garcia’s most recent address was on South Santa Fe Avenue in Vista, but he is expected to report to a Moreno Valley parole office located in Riverside County.