Police commission: LAPD unjustified in killing unarmed homeless man

LAPD overstepped.
(Image credit: MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)

A civilian oversight board has determined that Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Officer Clifford Proctor was not justified in his fatal shooting of Brendon Glenn, an unarmed homeless man, at Venice Beach in May of 2015.

By Proctor's account, he and his partner responded to a report that Glenn had been harassing people and found him to be intoxicated and aggressive. Proctor told investigators that Glenn reached for his partner's gun during an altercation, which prompted him to shoot.

But video evidence and the other officer's story say otherwise. "At no time during the incident can Glenn’s hand be observed on or near any portion of (the) holster," the LAPD chief’s report found, and Proctor's partner stated he "did not feel any jerking movements" on his holster or observe Glenn going for his gun.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Los Angeles County has yet to charge Proctor with any crime, though District Attorney Jackie Lacey is reviewing the police commission's findings.

Explore More
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.