Surf star arrested on drug, gun charges 2
Joey Ray Hawkins, a 1990s world longboard champion and Huntington Beach surf legend, was recently arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of methamphetamine while sitting in his car with a loaded 9 mm handgun near the city’s youth shelter, officials said.
Hawkins, 39, who won the ASP world longboard championship in France in 1992, pleaded not guilty Monday to two felony charges of possessing methamphetamine while armed and of possessing the drug.
“He is very well known – one of the few world champions in Huntington Beach,” John Lyman, a Surf City local since the 1960s, said after hearing about the arrest. “He never really took his surfing championship and did anything with it …He just kind of faded into the scene.”
Joey is a good hearted person with a million friends. I hope we all can be a friend now that he needs us the most. We all mess up so please don’t judge him. Pray for Joey to be the Great guy he is.
Joey’s friend Bobby Neishi
pretty sad, i guess being a world champion doesn’t just make life easy. Too bad nobody there to help, so much money in the sport, so many schools that can use such a person, and instead he is wasted smoking his soul away…