Teen’s shooting raises maddening questions

When it comes to the shooting of Erik Cantu, there is anguish and anger and disbelief.

But there is no controversy. Not even the most steadfast backers of the blue can find any justification for the actions of James Brennand, the nowfired rookie San Antonio police officer, at a McDonald’s parking lot on the North Side on the night of Oct. 2.

Brennand fired 10 shots at Cantu. The 17-year-old boy sustained multiple gunshot wounds and is fighting for his life. Brennand has been charged with two counts of aggravated assault by a public servant. He turned himself in on Tuesday night and was released on $200,000 bail the following morning.

Everything about Brennand’s conduct at the McDonald’s parking lot was slipshod and reckless. A police training academy would be hardpressed to find any video that better demonstrates what tactics to avoid.

Brennand, who had been on the SAPD force for seven months, went to the parking lot in response to a reported disturbance there.

Cantu had nothing to do with the disturbance, but Brennand noticed Cantu’s vehicle in the parking lot and concluded that it was the same vehicle that had evaded him a day earlier when the officer tried to make a routine traffic stop because the registered license plate didn’t match the vehicle.

We’re talking about a misdemeanor tag violation, but Brennand immediately assumed that the car was stolen. It wasn’t, but even if it had been, Brennand’s actions made no sense.

He called for backup but didn’t wait for that help to arrive.

He opened the driver-side door to Cantu’s vehicle and ordered Cantu to get out.

Cantu was eating a burger in his car. In the body-cam video of the incident released by SAPD, Cantu has a look of utter terror on his face — the same kind of terror that you or I would feel if a gun-wielding stranger opened the door to your car at 10:43 p.m. in a parking lot and demanded that you get out.

In that unforgiving moment, in that darkness, it would be easy to think you’re being carjacked. Even if Cantu was able to process the fact that the person in front of him was wearing a police uniform, Brennand’s unprovoked aggressiveness surely made Cantu feel that his life was in jeopardy.

With his door still open, Cantu backed out of the parking space. Brennand fired five shots at the car. As Cantu shifted from reverse to drive and started to pull away, Brennand fired five more shots.

A basic tenet of policing (spelled out in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1985 Tennessee v. Garner decision) is that the officer should use deadly force against a fleeing subject only when there’s probable cause to believe that the subject poses a serious physical threat to the officer or others.

Cantu was unarmed and posed no threat to anyone.

By firing at the driver of a moving car, however, Brennand put pedestrians and other drivers at risk of getting hit by Cantu’s car.

Brennand also could have hit Cantu’s passenger, who miraculously escaped injury.

The questions prompted by the officer’s behavior are endless and maddening:

Why didn’t Brennand wait for backup?

Why didn’t he announce himself to Cantu?

Why did he feel the need to open Cantu’s car door?

What made Brennand think that the right way to respond to a fleeing car was to start firing at the driver?

The body-cam footage of Brennand’s reaction to the shooting is illuminating. The officer chases Cantu’s car on foot and reports that shots have been fired. He sounds rattled, in the way that most people would be rattled if they had just used deadly force on someone. But you don’t get the sense that he thinks he screwed up.

The biggest question that needs to be answered about this case is whether it’s a tragic example of a rogue cop with terrible judgment (and a bad case of what officers sometimes refer to as the “John Wayne approach” to policing) or a manifestation of something deeper.

Some police veterans privately grumble that an obsession with bringing in the required numbers from the San Antonio Police Training Academy is resulting in the promotion of cadets to the force whether or not they’ve demonstrated the necessary qualifications.

The question isn’t whether Brennand received improper training, because it’s unimaginable that anyone would have trained him to handle a situation the way he approached the incident with Cantu.

The real question is whether his lack of judgment — and the possible lack of judgment of other officers — was apparent during the training process and was overlooked for the sake of getting another officer on the job.

It’s a question with life-ordeath ramifications.

Brennand