Ex-LAPD officer will face charges for 2015 killing of homeless man in Venice

An arrest warrant has been issued for a former Los Angeles police officer who shot and killed an unarmed homeless man in Venice Beach in 2015, marking a dramatic reversal of a past decision not to file charges in the case, multiple officials with direct knowledge of the situation told The Times.

Clifford Proctor, who served as an LAPD officer for about a decade, fired two fatal shots into the back of Brendon Glenn, a 29-year-old homeless man, after a dispute with a bouncer outside a bar near the Venice Speedway in May 2015.

Two law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the case said an arrest warrant has been issued for Proctor, but would not say why. Two other people with knowledge of the case confirmed Proctor will be arrested in connection with Glenn’s death.

All four officials requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the pending case publicly; none would confirm the specific charges against the former officer. It did not appear that a court hearing has been scheduled or that Proctor had been arrested as of Thursday morning.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Early in his term, Dist. Atty. George Gascón hired a special prosecutor to reopen four police shootings in which his predecessor, Jackie Lacey, declined to file charges against officers, including Proctor.

LAPD officers document the area where Clifford Proctor, who served as an LAPD officer for about a decade, shot and killed Brendon Glenn, a 29-year-old homeless man, after a dispute with a bouncer outside a bar in Venice in May 2015.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Bill Seki, an attorney who previously represented Proctor, said he had not heard from the former officer in years and had not been contacted by the district attorney’s office, though he acknowledged rumors about the warrant have been floating in police circles in recent weeks.

“I’m surprised that they’re reviewing it at this time … I find it interesting that they would do something like this so close to the election, the timing of it is suspicious,” Seki said, referring to Gascón’s dire hopes of winning reelection against challenger Nathan Hochman in November.

An LAPD spokesperson declined to comment. Calls and emails to Lacey were not immediately returned.

James V. DeSimone, an attorney for Glenn’s family, said they have “always felt strongly that the officer who shot Brendon Glenn in the back should be prosecuted.”

“While this doesn’t change the profound loss they suffered, they are grateful that there will be an opportunity to achieve justice in the criminal courts,” DeSimone said.

Glenn’s death has been a point of tension in the city for years. While the civilian Police Commission found it unjustified and former Police Chief Charlie Beck took the unprecedented step of publicly calling for Proctor to face manslaughter charges, Lacey declined to prosecute Proctor in 2018. Beck did not immediately respond to a request for comment, either.

Proctor and another officer responded to reports of Glenn and his dog causing a disturbance after he’d been kicked out of the Bank of Venice restaurant on Windward Avenue, according to a report issued by the district attorney’s office in 2018. Glenn’s dog moved toward Proctor, who threatened to shoot the animal before ordering Proctor to leave the area, the report said. Glenn responded by hurling several racial slurs at Proctor. Both men are Black.

Former LAPD officer Clifford Proctor, on crutches, was involved in a fatal 2015 shooting in Venice.

(Los Angeles Times)

Glenn walked away from the area and the officers followed, the report said. After Glenn got into an altercation with a bouncer at a different bar, Proctor and his partner moved to arrest Glenn, the report said.

During the ensuing struggle, Proctor shot Glenn twice in the back while the officers were wrestling with him on the ground. In 2016, Proctor’s attorney said Glenn was reaching for his partner’s gun, but footage from the scene contradicted that claim.

Glenn’s hand was never seen “on or near any portion” of the holster, according to a report made by the city’s Police Commission in 2016, and Proctor’s partner never made “any statements or actions” suggesting Glenn was trying to take the gun.

The shooting sparked protests and demands that Proctor face prosecution. He quit the LAPD in 2017 and was later charged with domestic violence by Orange County prosecutors. That case resolved in a plea deal and Proctor was barred from owning a gun for a decade.

In March 2018, Lacey released an 83-page memo announcing her decision not to charge Proctor. The office’s analysis provided a different interpretation of the video than Beck and the Police Commission, arguing it did not disprove Proctor’s claim that Glenn was reaching for his partner’s weapon. A DNA analysis didn’t rule out the possibility that Glenn grabbed for the gun, but it didn’t confirm he touched it either, according to the report.

An independent use-of-force expert hired by the district attorney’s office described Proctor’s actions as consistent with facing a threat to his life, the report said. Proctor’s interview with investigators was entirely redacted in the file.

Cookie Marie Genovese, left, and her daughter Heather Genovese, salute a photograph of their friend Brendon Glenn, a homeless man who was fatally shot by police, at his makeshift memorial on Windward Avenue in Venice on May 15, 2015. Cookie said that Glenn was a Marine Corps veteran. Timothy Truman, right, who lived on the streets of Venice with Glenn, holds the portrait of his friend.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“A duty to file criminal charges exists only when our office determines that the admissible evidence is of such a compelling force that it would warrant a conviction after considering the most plausible, reasonable and foreseeable defenses,” Lacey’s office wrote in the memo. “That is not the case here.”

At the time, it had been nearly two decades since the district attorney’s office last filed criminal charges against a law enforcement officer in an on-duty shooting. Lacey’s perceived reticence to prosecute police became a major hurdle to her bid for a third term. Gascón presented himself as the best hope of holding police accountable for excessive force when he successfully challenged her in 2020.

After his election, Gascón hired former federal prosecutor Lawrence Middleton and directed him to review four such shootings. Middleton has brought charges in only one other case, involving two Torrance police officers linked to a racist texting scandal who shot and killed Christopher DeAndre Mitchell, a Black man, in 2018. The case is ongoing.

Middleton declined a request for comment.