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Start of trial of Surfer assaulted by paddle boarder

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Tom:
‘Bully on the beach’ trial begins
Paddleboarder charged with assault off Sunset Cliffs
By Pauline Repard
SAN DIEGO
An Ocean Beach paddleboarder charged with assaulting a surfer in a dispute over waves off Sunset Cliffs was the “bully on the beach” last summer, a prosecutor said in San Diego Superior Court on Friday.
But Paul Taylor Konen’s defense lawyer told a jury it was the other way around.
Surfer Kevin Eslinger was paddling after Konen, scolding him, when Konen — the paddleboarder — tried to swing away, attorney Brian McCarthy said.
“My client was trying to get away,” McCarthy said. “A wave comes, (Eslinger) doesn’t know what happens. The next thing he knows, he comes to.”
The two points of view were offered in opening statements in a trial before a jury of seven men and five women. Konen, 34, is charged with assault with a deadly weapon on Eslinger, with an allegation of causing great bodily injury.
He is suspected of using his paddle to whack Eslinger in the head, splitting open his scalp and causing brain damage that has left the popular East County swim coach with a slight speech impediment.
“The question in this case, is: Did my client deliberately assault Mr. Eslinger? Or was there a collision as a wave was coming, and he got hurt?” McCarthy told jurors. “I will ask you — who was the bully on the beach that day?”
Eslinger, a 56-year-old Point Loma resident, has been a swimming coach for El Cajon Valley High School for 32 years and with Heartland Swimming Association for 28 years. He testified that he grew up swimming and surfing off San Diego, mainly at Sunset Cliffs.
He made news in 2005 when he paddled a 19-foot board 120 miles nonstop from Santa Barbara to Ocean Beach in 29 hours, 31 minutes. Three years earlier, he had paddled 73 miles from San Clemente Island to Ocean Beach.
Eslinger testified that he and his wife, Janae Kelley-Eslinger, went surfing on June 26 at a popular spot known as The Boil, near the foot of Ladera Street. Three-foot waves were breaking and several other surfers were there.
He said he caught one wave and found himself blocked by a large paddleboard coming at him from one side.
“It surprised me,” Eslinger said. “I asked him what he was doing. Surfing relies a lot on etiquette. If a surfer is riding a wave, you don’t interfere with that. (For Konen) to come from that side had a sense of blatant interference.”
He said he had to duck out of the way as one end of the paddleboard swung over his head. Then, he said, he saw the same paddleboarder cut off his wife’s ride, and she fell off her surfboard.
Eslinger said he used his hands to paddle his board toward the offender, to “have a conversation” about his behavior. While Eslinger was lying flat on his board, the paddleboard cut across his path and the back end of the larger board came toward his head, he said.
“The last thing I remember is my hands in front of me, and blackness,” Eslinger said. He came to several seconds later.
His wife got him to an emergency room, where eight staples closed a long gash from the top of his head toward his left ear.
“I wasn’t sure what hit me — not until I saw the shape of the wound,” Eslinger said.
Deputy District Attorney Matthew Greco told jurors that hair was found clinging to a dent in the paddle, but no DNA could be extracted to prove whether the hair was Eslinger’s.
pauline.repard@sduniontribune.com

Bean:
This will be interesting to say the least.

Sup-position:
Hey Tom
Do you know any of these guys ?

Tom:
Here is another article.

https://timesofsandiego.com/crime/2019/04/12/trial-begins-for-man-accused-of-assaulting-popular-local-surfer/?fbclid=IwAR0H9KgCM9_3FINDLUoSKaXBGPvVude_7Whvsu9YJYDYRQIxnzfL9XqeLQQ

SUP-position, Kevin is a friend and hero of mine that I have know for 20 years. I do not know Paul but have seen him surfing long boards, fish, and occasionally SUPs at the same breaks I usually surf. Some of the surfers from the area know him but few seem to be friends of him.

surfercook:
''His wife got him to an emergency room, where eight staples closed a long gash from the top of his head toward his left ear.''
That made me empathy cringe big time!  :o :'( Glad I wasn't out there that day!

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