This is the exact moment the LAPD fired 21 shots at Brian Beaird. As you see here, and as you will see in the full video below, Beaird never reaches in his waistband and never posed a grave threat to police.

This is the exact moment the LAPD fired 21 shots at Brian Beaird. As you see here, and as you will see in the full video below, Beaird never reaches in his waistband and never posed a grave threat to police.

He went for his waistband. Yeah, it's so strange how much unarmed men, confronted by police with guns drawn, seem to LOVE digging in their waistband. Police claimed that they thought they saw Brian Beaird do this over and over again, but as you watch the video below, you won't see anything like this—which is probably why the City of Los Angeles just agreed to pay his family $5 million. In essence, Los Angeles, which refused to prosecute the three officers who fired 21 shots at Beaird, are forcing the taxpayers to cover it.

Brian Beaird, a 51-year-old veteran struggling with mental illness, led police on a car chase throughout Los Angeles until he crashed his car and staggered out of it with his hands up and back turned toward the officers. The entire ordeal was on live television in Los Angeles as the car chase was covered close up by news helicopter—including the final shooting, which seemed to even stump the newscasters at the time. Beaird, clear as day, posed absolutely no threat to the officers.

According to Huffington Post:



Beaird had a number of emotional problems following his brain surgery and the death of six close friends in a military helicopter crash and was paranoid at the time of the police chase, the attorney said. "He couldn't understand why the police were chasing him, and he didn't know what to do," Galipo said. "He called his family during the pursuit and asked what he should do. And they told him he should pull over ... and he said 'I'm afraid' and kept going."

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, LA Weekly reported that officers fired so many shots because they mistakenly thought they heard Beaird shoot at them. They didn't use this defense later.

Head below the fold to read the police account and see the actual video.