A cruise ship
dancer who jumped 30 feet off a deck into San Diego Bay
last weekend was killed by police after attacking an officer
who had helped pull him onto a rescue boat, officials
said Monday.
Steven
Hirschfield, 37, a performer and bodybuilder who lived in
West Hollywood, was hired to dance aboard Saturday
night's Circuit Daze harbor cruise, a dance party
attended by about 900 revelers as part of the
weekend's gay pride celebrations.
Crew members
aboard the Hornblower Cruises boat Inspiration called
harbor police just after 11 p.m., about an hour into the
cruise, to report a man overboard. Hirschfield, clad
only in shorts and sneakers, refused to climb aboard a
small rescue vessel or grab flotation devices,
according to Jim Unger, general manager for Hornblower
Cruises.
''He didn't want
to come aboard,'' Unger said. ''There was something
wrong. Logically, when people go in the water, if they fell
or didn't want to be there, they would quickly want to
get help.''
Police said
Hirschfield apparently jumped off the boat voluntarily but
did not know why. He initially refused to climb onto the
swim deck of a harbor patrol boat but then hauled
himself onto the front end by a hanging rope, said
acting San Diego police Lt. William Stetson.
Once on the boat,
Hirschfield grabbed an officer's stun gun and beat him
in the face before reaching for the officer's weapon,
according to harbor police Lt. John Forsythe. A second
officer then fatally shot Hirschfield in the chest.
The injured officer was treated for face and leg injuries.
The officers'
names have not been released. The San Diego district
attorney's office and police homicide investigators will
investigate the shooting.
Toxicology
reports will be completed in about a month, according to the
San Diego County medical examiner's office.
According to
court records, Hirschfield was arrested in 2004 for
possession of a controlled substance, but charges were
dropped in 2006 after he agreed to an 18-month drug
rehabilitation program. A message left with
Hirschfield's attorney in the case was not immediately
returned.
Circuit Daze
promoter Bill Hardt did not respond to messages left by the
Associated Press seeking comment. Efforts to reach
Hirschfield's relatives were unsuccessful. (Allison
Hoffman, AP)
