6/12/05


Michael Stetz, STAFF WRITER


Over the years, Ocean Beach has been home to the weird, the rebellious, the drunk, the drugged, buff surfers, Hells Angels, the very heavily tattooed, the very much pierced, the cats with blue hair, purple hair . .

Tolerance? Oh, they know tolerance.

But Ronald Kilgore crossed the line -- which is no easy feat here. He was recently sent to jail for a year, and even when he gets out, he can't come back to Ocean Beach for three years.

Now you can say you've seen it all: Somebody actually got 86'd from O.B.

"We are very, very tolerant," said Denny Knox, president of the Ocean Beach MainStreet Association. "But he was out of control, and we didn't want him to go off the deep end."

Kilgore was threatening police, merchants and tourists and spray-painting graffiti everywhere, according to the City Attorney's Office. Community leaders complained.

So the city attorney's Neighborhood Prosecution Unit got tough and put the guy away. He's now in the County Jail. Part of his probation is that, when released, he stays away for three years.

"Today, everybody in Ocean Beach is safer," City Attorney Michael Aguirre said at a news conference Wednesday at the Ocean Beach Pier.

Kilgore, 47, had been living homeless in Ocean Beach for the past four or five years.

San Diego police Officer Carol Council is one of the officers who routinely ran across Kilgore. She has arrested him numerous times.

"He would say, `Carol, I'm going to come back and kill you,' " she said.

And that's not cool -- not even in O.B.

The neighborhood has always attracted a lot of transients, said Council, who has patrolled Ocean Beach for years. It also has seen its share of bizarre characters. But Kilgore was in a whole other category, community leaders said.

"He was escalating," said Officer James Heppell, another longtime Ocean Beach-based police officer. He, too, has been threatened by Kilgore.

Despite Ocean Beach's reputation for attracting offbeat residents, violent crime is rare, Heppell said.

The City Attorney's Office says Kilgore will now get help. He wasn't taking medication needed to control his behavior, officials said.

He has an extensive criminal history, dating to when he lived in Georgia and Texas, officials said.

Ocean Beach is changing. Homes are costly. Newport Avenue, the main drag, now sports a Starbucks.

But residents say this is not about the eclectic enclave getting more yuppified. This guy was just too difficult.

"O.B. is still very laid-back," Knox said. "But when it comes to threats, we're as protective as the next community."