Photo: Stock Image
The notion of mutual respect between the generations seems to have been absent on the afternoon of September 4th when Santa Barbara Police Department’s Dispatch Center received a 911 Emergency call reporting “an adult male firing a handgun” in a residential neighborhood city park.
According to SBPD spokesman Sgt. Ethan Ragsdale, patrol units responded to the park and made contact with 82-year-old Santa Barbara resident Roy Eugene Stephenson, Jr. who told them he had seen three teenagers “trespassing” in the creek bed adjacent to the park which he claimed was his property.
Further investigation indicated that Stephenson had been embroiled in “a verbal argument” with the three boys, ages 15, 16, and 18. At that point, Stephenson “retrieved a handgun and fired the weapon in the direction of the three subjects.” Officers took Stephenson into custody and he was transported to Santa Barbara County Jail, where he was booked on charges of felony assault with a deadly weapon, and being a felon in possession of a firearm, with enhancements as a “habitual criminal.”
