LOS ANGELES — District Attorney Jackie Lacey today declined to file charges against former LAPD officer Clifford Proctor for fatally shooting Brendon Glenn, an unarmed man, in 2015. Following the unprovoked shooting, which was captured by surveillance cameras, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck publicly urged Lacey to charge Proctor, and the LAPD Police Commission found Proctor violated LAPD policy in the shooting.
Please attribute the following statement to Melanie Ochoa, staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California:
"District Attorney Lacey's decision not to prosecute LAPD Officer Clifford Proctor for the shooting of Brendon Glenn abdicates her responsibility to protect all Angelenos from violence and to hold police accountable to the same laws as the public.
"Despite the hundreds of civilians that have been killed by police officers within Los Angeles during Lacey's tenure, not one officer has been charged with a crime. But even among this throng of victims, Brendon Glenn stands apart. If the evidence is clear enough for Chief Beck to take the extraordinary step of calling for prosecution of one of his own officers, what more does Lacey need? Her decision suggests that no matter how egregious an officer’s conduct is, no matter the evidence she has before her, she does not intend to hold any officer accountable for unnecessarily and inexplicably shooting a member of the public.
"Police officers are not above the law. District Attorney Lacey must stop treating them that way."
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