POLICE RAID POLITICAL FUNDRAISER

Sign on San Diego - Francine Busby says she will demand an explanation from the Sheriff's Department about deputies breaking up a fundraising party held for her in Cardiff and arresting the host. The party was Friday night in the 1300 block of Rubenstein Avenue, the home of Shari Barman, a Busby supporter. It ended with Barman, 60, being arrested and jailed on suspicion of battery on a peace officer, and resisting, delaying and obstructing a peace officer. . .

Other partygoers were doused with pepper spray, and seven deputies, a sergeant and a helicopter were dispatched to the neighborhood of expensive homes. . .

From about 8 to 8:30 p.m., Busby said, she used an amplified microphone to talk to guests, whom she described as middle-aged supporters.

During Busby's speech, Barman said in a statement, a man on the property behind her house shouted "disparaging remarks" about Busby and gay people. Barman lives in the house with her partner, Jane Stratton, 55.
After her talk, Busby said, people chatted.

"It was a quiet home reception, disrupted by a vulgar person shouting obscenities from behind the bushes," Busby said.

Neighbors on three sides of the house said yesterday there wasn't much noise from the party. One man said he slept through it.

"We didn't hear anything until the sheriff came, with eight patrol cars and a helicopter," said Natasha Cortina, 43, who said she and her two children were home with the windows open.

Hugh Elliott, 53, who lives closest to the house, said he heard a deputy's radio, then arguing, coughing, crying and finally everyone spilling outside as the smell of pepper spray drifted over his back fence.