Paradise Cove is the site of another beach fight on Saturday; man dies in Malibu Canyon accident.
By Olivia Damavandi / Staff Writer
While most of Malibu celebrated the Fourth of July holiday weekend relatively peacefully, with a half million visitors coming to local beaches Friday through Sunday, several violent incidents took place, leaving one person dead.
A July 4 brawl, one eyewitness said, that “left people bleeding profusely,” blew up around 4 p.m. at Paradise Cove Beach, and a 41-year-old man was killed Sunday after his car veered over the side of Malibu Canyon Road and plunged 500 feet into the canyon, Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff Station officials confirmed Monday.
The California Highway Patrol is investigating reports that the victim in Sunday’s car accident, Michael Mutz of Newhall, was driving recklessly and trying to pass other cars on the narrow canyon road. The accident caused the canyon road to be closed in both directions between Pacific Coast Highway and Piuma Canyon Road from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
While Los Angeles County Lifeguard Captain Chuck Moore said Monday that “half a million people visited Malibu beaches during the three-day weekend, with 300,000 at Zuma Beach alone, and they all went home safe,” thing were not so peaceful at Paradise Cove.
Witnesses to Saturday’s 20- to 30-person brawl at Paradise Cove say it left quite a few people injured.
The fight, according to one female witness from Agoura who requested anonymity, began at 4 p.m. between a group of non-Malibu residents tossing around a football. It escalated for 45 minutes and cleared up by the time Sheriff’s deputies arrived at 5 p.m., she said.
“It was the longest fight I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said Monday in a telephone interview.
Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff Station officials on Monday confirmed that the fight had already been dispersed once deputies arrived at the beach, but said no reports of damages or injuries had been received.
But a different witness, a male Malibu resident, on Monday said, “People were getting hit over the head with chairs, bleeding profusely and getting pushed into the ocean.”
“Malibu residents tried to get the people fighting to leave, but they kept coming back,” the Agoura resident said. “Families had to get up and leave the beach.”
Paradise Cove made headlines last summer following a feud that occurred there between a group of Malibu residents and paparazzi over the photographers trying to capture shots of Matthew McConaughey surfing, but both witnesses said no paparazzi were involved in the Fourth of July fight. Neither witness could confirm whether alcohol played a role in the brawl, but said hundreds of people were on the beach and many had their own coolers.
Meanwhile, lifeguards at Zuma Beach, just north of Paradise Cove, made only 25 rescues despite the 300,000 visitors during the weekend.
But busy lifeguards patrolling the shoreline were met with a new safety hazard: people digging deep holes in the sand.
“We’ve come across some holes dug behind lifeguard towers that are eight to 12 feet deep, so there’s no way for us to know they’re there,” Moore said. “It’s super dangerous to dig holes because they can collapse on you.”
A total of 30 Zuma Beach visitors were reported missing over the weekend, all of whom were found and most of whom were children between the ages of three and eight who had wandered short distances from their parents’ sight.