{"id":52465,"date":"2025-11-14T05:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T05:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/52465\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T05:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T05:07:10","slug":"councilman-faces-trial-but-on-reduced-charges-related-to-dispute-with-resident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/52465\/","title":{"rendered":"Councilman faces trial, but on reduced charges related to dispute with resident"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>Luke Shaffer. (Photo courtesy of the city of Encinitas.)<\/p>\n

An Encinitas councilmember<\/a> was ordered Thursday to stand trial in connection with a parking dispute between himself and a city resident.<\/p>\n

The judge, though, reduced the felony assault count against Luke Shaffer<\/a> to a misdemeanor and dismissed another charge.<\/p>\n

Shaffer, 45, is accused of reversing his truck into the resident\u2019s trash cans in July, damaging a trash bin and striking the resident\u2019s hands in the process.<\/p>\n

The dispute allegedly began after Shaffer moved the man\u2019s trash bins in order to park his truck so he could go to the nearby beach.<\/p>\n

When the resident moved his bins back, Shaffer allegedly pushed a bin over, then threw trash into the man\u2019s face, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

Shaffer then allegedly got into his truck and backed it into the bins.<\/p>\n

During a preliminary hearing held in Vista Superior Court, the resident testified that before reversing, Shaffer said, \u201cIf you stand there, I\u2019m going to run you over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shaffer allegedly told investigators that the man moved his trash bins into the path of his truck while he was reversing, though prosecutors allege surveillance footage from a nearby home shows he looked at the man before backing up. Deputy District Attorney<\/a> Chandelle Boyce argued during the hearing that it was \u201can intentional act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterwards, Shaffer allegedly told the resident that he would never get another permit in the city again. Though some of the incident was captured on video, no audio exists of the alleged threat.<\/p>\n

Shaffer\u2019s defense attorney, Isaac Blumberg, asked for the charges to be dismissed entirely or in the alternative, for the assault count to be reduced to a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n

Blumberg said what occurred was \u201can isolated incident\u201d that didn\u2019t rise to felony conduct and asked Superior Court Judge Saba Sheibani to take note of his client\u2019s 12 years of active-duty service in the Marine Corps and his volunteer work. Around 40 family members, friends and community members attended the hearing in support of Shaffer.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is defined by a lifetime of service and integrity,\u201d Blumberg said.<\/p>\n

Sheibani said she would reduce the assault count because the victim did not sustain significant injuries, while also taking into account Shaffer\u2019s personal history. The judge also said that as far as ensuring public safety, the misdemeanor count would achieve the same sentencing goals as a felony charge.<\/p>\n

She also dismissed a misdemeanor charge of willful omission to perform a duty. The criminal complaint filed against Shaffer states that he had a duty not to use his position to threaten members of the public. Sheibani said that even if Shaffer made the statement regarding permits, there was no indication he took any additional steps to follow up on the alleged threat.<\/p>\n

Shaffer was elected last fall to represent Encinitas\u2019 City Council District 1.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Shaffer. (Photo courtesy of the city of Encinitas.) An Encinitas councilmember was ordered Thursday to stand trial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4601,33245,9985,74,76,75,33246],"class_list":{"0":"post-52465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-encinitas","9":"tag-luke-shaffer","10":"tag-misdemeanor","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-headlines","13":"tag-san-diego-news","14":"tag-trash-bins"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}