12 San Diego Reader January 7, 2016
Walter
Mencken’s
SD ON THE QT
“Mistakes Were Made”
District Attorney Dumanis provides audio commentary for police shooting video
LAST APRIL, San Diego police officer Neal Browder shot and killed 42-year-old Fridoon Nehad in an alleyway. A sur- veillance camera captured the shooting, but district attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who decided that Browder’s use of deadly force was justified, refused to
might expect from a judge who is currently under investigation by the district attorney’s office for…something we’ll announce very soon.
“Right up front, I should
admit that Officer Browder made a mistake. He should never have spoken to police
DA Dumanis, in accounting for Officer Browder’s decision to shoot a mentally ill man, stressed that “an estimated 50 percent of people shot by the police in the United States are mentally ill.”
All you need is a credit card and a death wish
Judge Hays. “Just look at that crooked smile,” noted Dumanis. “Those shifty, heavy- lidded eyes. We’re not sure what he’s up to, but we are sure it isn’t good.”
release the video to the public. That is, until district judge Wil- liam Hays ordered otherwise. Then she called a press confer- ence to address “the multiple mistakes” involved in the case. “The first mistake, of course,” Dumanis began, “lies in judge William Hays’s deci- sion that this video should be released to the public at all. The Nehad family is currently pur- suing a wrongful death lawsuit against the city. Clearly, you are going to taint people’s opinion if you show them the evidence. But then, that’s the sort of anti- law enforcement chicanery we
Officer Browder, whose hasty decision (to speak to an investi- gating officer) “was a bit rash,” according to Dumanis, “but understandable, given the fluidity of the situation. He didn’t have time to make a considered judgment.”
sergeant Manuel Del Toro about the incident prior to seeking the counsel of Police Officer Association attorney Brad Fields. There’s a reason attorneys are called counsel- ors. Now we have this confus- ing statement from Del Toro’s report in which Browder says he didn’t see any weapons at the scene of the shooting. Clearly, that’s inaccurate because, five days later, Browder says he saw a metal object that looked like it might be a knife in Mr. Nehad’s hand....
“Of course,” continued
Almost factual news
or flipping the pen when there are police officers nearby. A serious oversight, I think you’ll agree; one that led to tragic consequences. For all Officer Browder knew, Nehad was carrying a United Cutlery ballpoint.
“Further, consideration must From the top: Poison-needle pen in Moonraker,
acid pen in Octopussy, pen gun in Never Say Never Again, exploding pen in GoldenEye, Nehad’s pen.
Dumanis, “the ‘knife’ turned out to be a pen. But that leads us to another mistake, this one made by the website
blowgun.com, which sells a ‘fully functional
ink pen’ by United Cutlery that is also ‘a convenient knife’ for just $4.95. Nowhere on the pen knife’s sales page is there any kind of warning against brandishing
be given to the profound cultural influences at work here. Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s famous dictum that the pen is mightier — read, ‘more dangerous’ — than the sword is only the beginning. Consider the hugely popular James Bond film franchise. Over and over, pens prove to be deadly weapons, sometimes in disturbingly plausible ways. “And finally, it was clearly a mistake for the makers of the classic Kurt Russell film Big
So fast, you can’t even see it.
Trouble in Little China to include that awesome scene where actor and legendary fight choreogra- pher Jeff Imada whips a butter- fly knife around in such badass fashion. Having witnessed such a display in his impressionable youth, is it any wonder Offi- cer Browder thought Nehad’s twirling pen might actually be a deadly balisong? “In short,” concluded Dumanis, “the video clearly does not tell the whole story. That’s my job.”
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