Reimagining Berkeley ~ A Closer Look at the BPD Shooting of Vincent Bryant
On January 2, 2021, the Berkeley Police Department (BPD) shot a mentally unstable man, Vincent Bryant, in the face with lethal ammunition after he allegedly took $14 worth of food and wielded a chain. We wrote about this in our last column on February 4th. Since then, the BPD has released — in response to Public Records Act requests — officers’ raw body cam footage (along with a highly stylized video they created to try to control the narrative).
This footage contains significant new information about the events of that day. First, there were at least 15 officers surrounding Mr. Bryant, like they were trapping a rabid animal, with all of their weapons pointed at him. Second, Mr. Bryant exhibited signs of severe mental instability throughout the incident. Third, the negotiator-trained officer held a gun in her hand while she tried to “deescalate” the situation by using reflective listening and asking Mr. Bryant to sit down and talk to her. An armed negotiator is unlikely to instill calm. Additionally, the new information from this video require the following errata from our last column (though this column contains our opinions, we want to be impeccable with the facts as we know them): Mr. Bryant was shot within 13 minutes of the first officer arriving on the scene (not two, as we reported), and Mr. Bryant was not holding a bicycle chain but rather a thin metal chain with small links.
The new information shown in the body cam footage raises a number of questions about the actions of the BPD:
Why did the BPD shoot Mr. Bryant with less lethal and live ammunition when nobody was in imminent danger (except Mr. Bryant)? Why was force deployed? Why was lethal force used at the same time as less lethal? Was this an accident? Why did only 13 minutes elapse from when the first officer arrived on the scene to when shots were fired? Was reflective listening and asking Mr. Bryant to sit down and talk the full extent of the BPD’s deescalation techniques or did the negotiator-trained officer fail to use other tactics? Are BPD negotiators trained to negotiate while displaying a gun or was this also a failure in the negotiator-trained officer’s deescalation? Given the well known racial disparities in BPD policing, and the fact that five Black men have been shot, threatened with shooting or shot with less lethals since March 2020, it is natural to wonder: are these acts of excessive force racially motivated?
After viewing all of the body cam footage provided, it appears that BPD’s decision to deploy force was a matter of convenience for the police and not a necessity. A close review of BPD policy would likely reveal violations of policy and training. However, the more important and urgent lesson here is that police should not be the primary responder to these types of incidents. They could play a subordinate role as back up to an actual mental health responder.
With the Reimagining Public Safety initiative beginning this week, there is certainly a lot to reimagine.
Elana Auerbach and Negeene Mosaed are co-editors of Reimagining Berkeley in the Berkeley Times where this was first published on February 18, 2021. Together, we want to utilize this extraordinary moment in American history to reimagine and create a genuine community where more than just the 10% and a single race flourishes.
