This story has been updated.
Officer James Brennand, who fired his gun 10 times at a teenager Sunday, was terminated by the San Antonio Police Department on Wednesday.
On Friday, District Attorney Joe Gonzales announced his office had rejected the charges — evading detention in a vehicle and assault on a peace officer — against the 17-year-old, “at least for now,” while he remains in a hospital in “critical but stable condition.”
Brennand is not entitled to an appeal of his termination because he was still considered a probationary officer, on the job for just seven months. The investigation into the shooting is ongoing, police said, and all officer-involved shootings are forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office for review.
Police Chief William McManus told the San Antonio Report that Brennand’s actions were “entirely against policy and training that we receive.”
While Brennand was responding to a disturbance at a McDonald’s on the North Side at approximately 10:45 p.m., he noticed a car in the parking lot that allegedly matched the description of a vehicle he had tried to pull over on Saturday.
“This vehicle was not the subject of the disturbance call,” said Alyssa Campos, the SAPD’s training commander, in a narrated version of Brennand’s body camera footage released Wednesday. “The officer thought the car may be a stolen vehicle and called for cover.”
Before other officers arrived, the officer approached the car and opened the driver’s side door without warning — seeming to surprise the male driver who was still eating his meal when he put the car in reverse and attempted to leave.
But the car door was still open and it struck Brennand, who stepped back from the vehicle and fired five shots at the driver. As the car exited the parking lot, Brennand fired five more times.
The driver and his passenger were eventually apprehended about a block away. The 17-year-old female passenger was uninjured, but the driver was taken to an area hospital with multiple gunshot wounds.
“It started going bad from the very start of this encounter,” said McManus, questioning why the officer approached the vehicle in the first place. “You don’t know that for certain it’s the same vehicle, you don’t know for certain it’s the same driver.”
Tactically, the officer should not have placed himself in front of an open door of a car that was turned on, he said. And once the officer “cleared the door and was no longer in danger of being knocked down or pulled out of the car, he was not in a position where he should have used deadly force.”
The second round of shots was also against policy.
“The driver was going in the opposite direction, away from the officer,” he said. “There’s no way I could look at that, or anyone could look at it, and try to justify what happened.”
After new officers complete training, which includes 15 weeks of field training alongside another officer, they are placed on probation for one year. These probationary officers can be fired without notice or cause by the chief, according to the police union’s employment contract with the city.
That means they are not entitled to the same appeal process that full-fledged officers may employ.
“Swift action was taken by the Chief to terminate the officer, and I am relieved that this decision is final,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in an emailed statement.
Brennand’s actions don’t give McManus cause for concern over the SAPD training processes.
“Our policies are sound and our training is sound,” he said. “And I don’t see anywhere that would require review. … This was an individual failure. Not a training failure, not a policy failure.”
“Once SAPD completes its investigation into the actions of former Officer James Brennand and submits the case to our office, our Civil Rights Division will fully review the filing,” He said in a statement. “As we do with all officer-involved shootings that result in death or serious injury, we will submit the case to a Grand Jury for their consideration. Until that happens, we can make no further comment on this matter.”
