At the height of the winter surfing season last year, plans for an undercover police operation were set in motion. 

After weeks of preparation, Palos Verdes Estates officers in February 2016 were ready to conduct a sting targeting the bullying tactics of surfers that put Lunada Bay and the city under a national media spotlight. 

But one day before the operation was to be carried out with the help of Santa Monica police, it was abruptly called off.  Someone had tipped off the Bay Boys. 

The derailed plan was just one revelation shared in hundreds of court documents filed last week by attorneys suing the alleged surfer gang and the affluent city, which is accused of turning a blind eye to the locals’ harassment of outsiders. 

Statements by victims in more than 25 declarations echo accounts that have been reported at the bay for decades: nonlocals said they were pelted with rocks and dirt as they made their way down a steep trail, endured constant verbal assaults on the shoreline and were frequently cut off in the water by the Bay Boys — if they even made it that far. 

The documents are part of a motion filed Thursday by attorneys Vic Otten and Kurt Franklin, who are seeking to have the lawsuit certified as a class-action.  A federal judge is scheduled to make that determination Feb. 17. 

Finding the leak

According to depositions taken in the lawsuit, Police Chief Jeff Kepley began exploring the possibility of conducting an undercover operation at Lunada Bay in late 2015, calling for help from other departments at a meeting of police chiefs. 

At the time, Kepley was quoted in the media saying he wanted to crack down on surfing localism, which had become a national story thanks to hidden camera footage published by the Guardian newspaper. 

The day before the operation was supposed to take place in early February 2016, resident Michael Thiel met with City Manager Tony Dahlerbruch at City Hall.  Thiel said he was frustrated with how officials were handling recent media attention, according to the testimony, and expressed concern that “there might be some type of sting operation.” 

Kepley received a call from Dahlerbruch and canceled the operation “to protect the officers,” Kepley said in his deposition. 

According to the declarations, only four to five city employees were aware of the operation, but Kepley believed the leak “could have come from anywhere.” 

“It could have been in my department, anyone in Santa Monica Police Department, or any other agency in L.A. County who was at the chief’s meeting when I asked for help,” Kepley said in his deposition. 

Last month, Kepley declined to comment to the Daily Breeze on the foiled undercover operation and an apparent investigation to determine who leaked information about it, citing the litigation. 

Edwin Richards, an attorney representing Kepley and the city, acknowledged that an investigator was involved, but did not respond to further questions. 

A heavily redacted April 2016 police memo obtained by the Daily Breeze through a records request states only that the operation was planned in early February and that Kepley learned the Bay Boys found out about it “by unknown means.” 

Several local surfers have acknowledged knowing police officers and growing up with them, according to the court documents.  One surfer named in the lawsuit, Brant Blakeman, said in his deposition that he has a city-issued cellphone as a volunteer with the Community Emergency Response Team. 

On Tuesday, Thiel denied having any knowledge of the undercover operation, declining to speak to a reporter.  He is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, but is identified in court documents as a Bay Boy. 

Attorneys representing the defendants either declined to comment or did not return phone calls. 

Another foiled operation

This isn’t the first time an undercover surfing operation was thwarted in the city. 

In December 2003, a Hawthorne police officer posed as a surfer and parked a van branded with “San Clemente Surf Tours” at several spots along the coast, setting up a tripod and pretending to take photos of the ocean. 

According to a police report obtained through a records request, a group of men at Lunada Bay shouted “No photos!”  at the officer, interrogated him about what he was doing and “advised him that this is a private spot and they want to keep it that way.” 

Palos Verdes Estates police watched from a distance and noticed that a Jeep stopped next to the van.  They suspected the driver was up to something and pulled him over.  The man denied vandalizing the vehicle, though police later discovered one of its doors covered in spit. 

The driver went home for his surfboard and returned to the bay, yelling to surfers at the base of the cliff that police were watching them. 

The undercover officer, now taking photos at the Bay Boys’ cliffside stone patio, knew his cover was blown.  An angry surfer confronted him, saying that while he first believed the decoy was a “bold mother f—–,” he now realized he was a “psycho cop,” according to the report.  Two other surfers stepped in and the encounter ended with handshakes. 

The operation netted no arrests, but several complaints from local surfers felt it constituted entrapment.  They felt betrayed by then-Police Chief Timm Browne, the report stated, especially since they “put him in office.” 

Experts, victims weigh in

According to court documents, Philip King, an economics professor at San Francisco State University, estimated the recreational value lost by surfers cut off from using Lunada Bay since 1970 to be $50 million.  King, who has weighed in on the economic value of recreation at beaches for the California Coastal Commission, estimates 60 to 75 surfers should be paddling into Lunada Bay on a given day during the peak season, but only eight to 12 do. 

The declarations from victims paint a picture of a city and Police Department that not only seemed uninterested in the Bay Boys’ alleged crimes, but were complicit at times in the localism culture meant to keep outsiders away from the affluent community. 

In many of the statements, victims said they reported instances when they were assaulted or harassed to the police, only to be met with indifference.  Many said the police did not follow up on their reports. 

Some of the declarations came from beachgoers who weren’t even there to surf. 

Sharlean Perez detailed an instance in which she and her boyfriend were hiking down to the shoreline when a bottle thrown by a man on the blufftop nearly hit them. 

Blake Will, a former Palos Verdes Estates resident, compared the treatment he and other surfers received to gang violence he witnessed as a lifeguard at a pool in Watts. 

Despite growing up in the community, Will said he was treated as an outsider at Lunada Bay. 

“I saw firsthand that Watts was a very dangerous place due to the gang violence,” he stated. “ Nonetheless, I would feel safer playing a basketball game in Watts amidst the Bloods and Crips than I would trying to surf at Lunada Bay.”