Justin Bieber assault claim didn’t involve ‘physical touching’

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials were releasing little information about an investigation into whether Justin Bieber committed battery against his neighbor in Calabasas.

Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore decline to describe the allegation against Bieber, saying the alleged assault did not involve “physical touching.” He would not elaborate.

Sheriff’s deputies arrived on the block where Bieber lives in Calabasas at 9:08 a.m. Tuesday to investigate the neighbor’s allegations of battery and threats by Bieber, Whitmore said.

The altercation began with an argument outside their homes on Prado Del Grandioso, the neighbor alleged. But then it escalated, according to officials. Whitmore said the neighbor told authorities he was subject to battery and threats by the singer.

Whitmore declined to describe the alleged acts of battery or specific threats, saying it was “still being investigated.”

Prosecutors declined to pursue criminal charges in connection with an altercation last May in Calabasas in which Bieber allegedly punched and kicked a photographer.

Sheriff’s detectives investigated allegations that Bieber struck the photographer after he snapped pictures of the singer and his then-girlfriend, actress Selena Gomez, at the Commons at Calabasas Shopping Center.

But officials with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said no evidence, including videos and photographs, corroborated the allegations by the paparazzo, who was treated and released at a local hospital.

According to the narrative by prosecutors, the photographer was with other paparazzi taking pictures of the pop star and Gomez as they left a theater and walked to a parking lot.

Bieber allegedly kicked the photographer in the lower abdomen, “leading the suspect to lose his balance,” prosecutors said.

When the photographer said Bieber’s actions were unnecessary, the pop star allegedly punched him in the right side of the face. Bieber then got back in the van and drove “erratically in the parking lot” before leaving the shopping center, prosecutors said.

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