LAPD officers fired 22 shots at unarmed driver after Corvette chase, review says

[Judi Lynn]

Source: NBC News

LAPD officers fired 22 shots at unarmed driver after Corvette chase, review says
6 hours ago
By Andrew Blankstein
NBC News

Three LAPD officers have been temporarily relieved of patrol duty after a departmental review found they fired 22 shots and killed the unarmed driver of a Corvette after he led them on a high-speed chase Friday night.

“After hearing the preliminary briefing, I am very concerned about the circumstances that led up to and resulted in this Officer Involved Shooting,” said LAPD Chief Charlie Beck. “Because of those concerns I have directed that the three involved officers be assigned home pending the final results of the investigation. Determinations regarding training or possible disciplining of the involved officers will be made at that time.”

The crash and the shooting were captured by local TV helicopters that had been following the Corvette during an hour-long chase through crowded city streets. Police opened fire at Brian Newt Beaird, 51, after he slammed his silver sports car into a Nissan at a downtown L.A. intersection, drove the vehicle onto the curb and hit a tree, and then got out and tried to walk away from the vehicle. Beaird was pronounced dead at a local hospital from multiple gunshot wounds. “No weapon was recovered” at the accident scene, said Chief Beck.

The LAPD did not immediately say how many shots hit Beaird, or offer an explanation for why deadly force was employed. Chief Beck made his decision to send the officers home, with pay, after the results of an initial review known as a “72-hour briefing.” Criminal and administrative investigations are continuing and could take months to complete.




Read more: http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/19/21972923-lapd-officers-fired-22-shots-at-unarmed-driver-after-corvette-chase-review-says?lite

[JI7]

1. for anyone who saw video or has any info on this, did the Nissan run a red light ?

i know the corvette guy was driving illegally and speeding , but when it hit the nissan who ran the red light ?


i saw some comments saying the nissan had run a red light but i couldn't see from the video i watched .

[ManiacJoe]

5. Depends on the light pattern.

All the lights going the opposite way of the Nissan were red. This could easily mean that all the lights going with the Nissan (including the left turn light) were green.

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. We need a national commission on law enforcement standards and practices.

I do get tired of saying that over and over...

...but the cops really seem to be out of control and too often acting like thugs in this country. And rarely, rarely held to account. Anyone want to take wagers on whether any of these guys who gunned down an unarmed man get indicted, let alone convicted?

[SoapBox]

4. I agree...

There seems to be more and more trigger happy cops. And they don't just fire a warning.

[ManiacJoe]

6. Warning shots are illegal is most (all?) areas.

[sendero]

10. "will take month to complete".

.... why is that? All of the facts can be known in a matter of hours or days at the most.

I believe that these "investigations" are drawn out to give everyone time to forget and to lose their passion about the incident.

And I'm tired of the police investigating themselves. What a fucking joke that is.

[Octafish]

12. Well, it isn't like an assassination of a president or anything.

There, the "authorities" had their patsy, uh, had their man and the story down pat the same day.

[jsr]

23. It bears repeating.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. I thought most PD's called off a chase when...

it went through populated areas and had a good chance of ending in a crash. Or injury and death.

But, chasing him through city streets and then shooting him sure looks like the cops were just pissed, not rational at all. No mercy for the cops-- they could have killed pedestrians, other drivers, maybe the crowd in Dunkin' Donuts...

[pothos]

7. in 2011, german police

fired 85 shots. for the entire year.

49 of those were warning shots.

[Skeeter Barnes]

9. In that case, they should have only fired 36 shots the entire year.

There is no control over the bullet once it's fired. It can ricochet anywhere. If they weren't in enough danger to shoot the suspect, they shouldn't have shot at all.

[Nihil]

11. And whoosh goes the point of the previous comment way, way over your head.

For your next exercise, please compare & contrast the danger caused by
those 49 deliberately targeted warning shots in the entire year with the
count of fatalities (without warning shots) from the police in the United States
of Armourers.



Gun-nuts: Prepared to shoot the entire forest in the effort to find where the
"bad-guy" tree may or may not be hiding.

[Skeeter Barnes]

20. I understood just fine. Just saying they should have shot much less because

they didn't need to fire in the first place.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

19. Oh bullshit.

I'll trust the people who manage not to kill hundreds of people every year end discharge thousands of rounds before I believe some gunner absolutist BS.

Center mass, center mass, center mass. Yeah we've heard it all before.

"I didn't WANT to shoot that little old lady in the chest but I felt I owed it to her"

Last time I was at a gun range there wasn't ricochets flying all around. Funny that.

[Skeeter Barnes]

21. I'm advocating for *not shooting at all* vs. firing warning shots and that makes me

a "gunner absolutist"? That doesn't make any sense at all. And why do you think there aren't bullets ricocheting around at a gun range? Because there is a backstop designed to stop the bullets.

[jsr]

24. Very illuminating.

[jtuck004]

8. The entire chase and shooting here...

http://www.imotortimes.com/corvette-chase-suspect-killed-live-driver-brian-beaird-was-schizophrenic-veteran-shot-down-lapd

It clearly shows him blowing through multiple red lights, slowing for a pedestrian, the ending crash, him trying to move the car after the crash, getting out and running around to the other side, being shot and falling. You can see the light above him is red, though it might have changed before that. The Nissan, I suspect, was going through on green, but hard to tell from the video.

Police don't like to let their partners shoot alone because defense attorneys and the city can raise questions about the need to shoot, so when one opens up they all do - EXCEPT that the first round here was beanbag, and it is suggested that the officers that fired second didn't realize that.

Policy says you clearly announce you are doing that - a little difficult to hear over sirens and city noise, however.

There will be a lot more on this one...

Oh yeah. He was a disabled vet, paranoid schizophrenic, according to the article.

[damnedifIknow]

13. Another day, another unarmed citizen shot

So what else is new?

[christx30]

14. I keep hearing

"Only the police should be allowed to have guns". Maybe that thinking is wrong.

[olddad56]

16. It is time to stop calling them police and call them what they are...

they are the municipal armed forces. They have replaced police departments in most cities in this country. When I was a little kid, we were taught that the police were our friends. Now we are learning that the message is 'step out line and we will kill you'.

[Fiendish Thingy]

15. A weapon was recovered

It was his car.

Not saying that justifies the use of force, just sayin'

[Z_California]

17. Sorry but...

A car isn't a weapon when you're gunned down standing next to it. Peace.

[sir pball]

18. I'm going to play devil's advocate here - a car is legally a deadly weapon

And while he was walking away from the totaled, undrivable Vette, he may have been looking to steal another car to continue the chase. In that case, like it or not, it is legal to shoot a fleeing suspect, in the back - Tennessee v. Garner, &quot W)hen a law enforcement officer is pursuing a fleeing suspect, he or she may use deadly force only to prevent escape if the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others."

Mind you, I don't know that's what he was doing, and to be very clear I DO NOT SUPPORT THIS ACTION, but there is some legal gymnastics that would be possible to justify this.

Now, if they had been pursuing on foot and he then tried to break into another car in their view, I still wouldn't like it but thee wouldn't be much case to call it "unjustified".

[tabasco]

22. Sounds like murder to me.

"tried to walk away from the vehicle"