Long Beach police released video on Saturday showing portions of a confrontation outside a neighborhood church that ended with officers shooting a man whose family said he was suffering from a mental health crisis.
Brandon Boyd, 38, was fatally shot by police hours after officers responded to text messages reporting a guy with a firearm. His family has condemned the police’s handling of the case.
The Long Beach Police Department stated that officers who arrived to Iglesia de Cristo Miel, a church on Atlantic Avenue at 52nd Street, attempted to de-escalate the situation using a hostage negotiator and a mental evaluation team in the hours leading up to the shooting.
According to the department, Boyd refused to cooperate for more than two hours, prompting the deployment of a SWAT squad. The nearly 17-minute video, released Saturday, contains footage from police body cameras that shows some of their exchanges with Boyd while he sat on the church steps.
At one point in the video, a police officer tells Boyd, “No one wants to injure you, OK? We simply want to see what is in your palm.”
Boyd informs the officer that he was the one who called 911 about a man carrying a gun. Dispatchers had received the succession of text-to-911 communications depicted in the video. As they speak, the police officer repeatedly asks Boyd whether he has a gun and instructs him to place his hands on his head and walk down the steps.
Boyd expresses concern for other individuals in the neighborhood, stating that he wants to allow the police time to clear traffic.
“I do not want this to be about anyone else… “Move the traffic because I just saw a lot of children,” he adds in the video.
He subsequently tells an officer, “You can’t assist me… “At some point, I’ll force your hand.”
The body camera footage was mixed with textual accounts of what the department claimed had occurred. Authorities said SWAT squad members fired a flash-bang device and foam projectiles as part of an “arrest plan.”
After officers used the flashbang, Boyd reached behind his back, grabbed something, and pointed it, according to security footage from inside the church. According to police, Boyd discharged a firearm at policemen.
According to officials, four officers fired back. Boyd was shot and was pronounced dead on the scene. One officer was hit in the arm and treated at a hospital.
According to the Long Beach Post, authorities believe one of Boyd’s shots harmed the officer, but Boyd’s family claims he was injured by fellow officers.
In a statement issued Saturday, Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson acknowledged the community’s tremendous anguish and loss over the shooting. Richardson stated that he had been in frequent contact with Police Chief Wally Hebeish and had “advocated for transparency and the timely release of critical documents to ensure clarity and maintain public trust.”
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and the city’s Police Oversight Commission will also look into the incident, Richardson said.
“Importantly, this process includes input from our residents, giving the community a voice and demonstrating the citywide commitment to transparency and accountability,” according to him. “We will continue to prioritize these values throughout this difficult time.”
Boyd’s family members spoke out during a news conference alongside Black Lives Matter Grassroots activists last month, condemning police actions that night. His sister stated that her brother has six children who are now without a father.
He “was peaceful and in need of help,” Tiffany Boyd told reporters. “Despite this, the police decided to escalate the situation by deploying a flash grenade, a violent and unnecessary act that led to the fatal shooting” that killed her older brother.
Tiffany Boyd, of Black Lives Matter Grassroots Long Beach, said in a statement released Sunday that “the video shows much of what we know. Brandon was in difficulty and required assistance, so the police department escalated the case.”
According to the group, “In the brief video clip produced by the LBPD, it is clear that in the moments before his life was stolen, Brandon was following police orders and had his hands clearly out in front of himself.”
According to BLM Grassroots Long Beach, the film, which only shows a portion of Boyd’s hours of engagement with police, leaves many of their issues unanswered, including “what is missing from what the police have released?”
Members of the organization also criticized the behavior of three of Boyd’s family members after the shooting, claiming that police restrained and harassed them, leaving one with a damaged arm. Police told the Long Beach Post that three persons had been arrested for disrupting the crime scene, one of whom had attacked an officer.
