Criminal charges are being recommended for a Los Angeles Police Department officer who shot an unarmed homeless man in the back in May of 2015.
Brendon Glenn, a regular fixture on and around the Venice Boardwalk, was said to be in an altercation with another man—a bouncer at a bar—when police intervened. LAPD Officer Clifford Proctor would later state that, in the ensuing struggle, Glenn attempted to take both his and his partner’s weapon. Investigators from the LAPD, however, found that Glenn was on his stomach when Proctor shot him twice in the back. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck made the recommendation of criminal charges. He says he was aided in part by video footage that captured most of the event. Even Proctor’s partner stated he did not know why Proctor shot Glenn. Proctor is black, as was Glenn.
Beck’s decision is a bit of a surprise to this writer (and many others, no doubt). Last year, when the Los Angeles Police Commission found that LAPD officers acted out of policy in the murder of Ezell Ford—a shooting with similar circumstances as Glenn’s—Beck made a video recording to LAPD’s 9,000-plus officers assuring them that they had his support.
The recommendation to charge Proctor criminally was made to the Los Angeles County District Attorney by Beck last month. Good luck with that one. The current D.A., Jackie Lacey, has been a disappointment thus far in the area of cop accountability, following an historic pattern. The D.A.’s office has not charged any cops for on-duty shootings in 15 years. Under Lacey’s tenure, which began in December of 2012, sheriff’s deputies who assaulted visitors to the county jail—the visitors … not the inmates—led carefree lives until the FBI stepped in and investigated.
We’ll be keeping our eyes on this one. The L.A. district attorney’s office should be the one spot that can provide Angelenos with accountability and justice, since the LAPD obviously can’t.