[size=4]Cheney guards may be linked to fight at bar[/size=4]
By Brian Hazle  UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

March 1, 2002

ENCINITAS – Sheriff's detectives are investigating a fight outside a nightclub last month involving two U.S. Secret Service agents connected with Vice President Dick Cheney's recent visit.

Jim Mackin, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said yesterday that the two agents were headed toward their car when a group of men assaulted them about 2 a.m. Feb. 18.

Sheriff's spokesman Ron Van Raaphorst said detectives at the Encinitas substation are investigating a fight that occurred outside a nightclub that night, but could not confirm that Secret Service agents were involved.

Detectives did not return phone messages left yesterday.

The agents had completed a shift about three hours before the fight, Mackin said.

Butch Hofstetter, a doorman at the Daley Double Saloon on Coast Highway 101 between D and E streets, said he saw seven or eight men fighting in the street shortly after the bar closed.

One man was lying on the ground bleeding from the mouth and another had had the tip of his right ear bitten off, he said. Four men, at least one of whom had a gun clipped to his belt, ran away before deputies arrived, Hofstetter said.

"They were all in the middle of the street," he said. "They were chasing each other all over the place."

Bartender Danny Ashley said he called deputies.

"I was wiping down the bar and heard the noise and somebody said a guy had the tip of his ear bitten off," he said.

Ashley took a towel to sop up the blood from a man in his 20s, who was an occasional customer. Ashley did not see the other men involved, he said.

Mackin did not identify the agents and said he did not know if any were injured.

See article at:[url]http://www.uniontribune.com/news/northcounty/20020301-9999_1mi1veep.html[/url]

Eric The(AreWeCertainTheyWereAgents?)Hun[>]:)]

[b]"I was wiping down the bar and heard the noise and somebody said a guy had the tip of his ear bitten off," he said.[/b]

When did Mike Tyson join the Secret Service??

That's what it cost him to get his D.C. boxing license.