Photo by Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images.
By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
San Francisco, CA – San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins has repeatedly declined to prosecute a security guard, even after video called into question the guard’s actions at a Walgreens store in San Francisco that resulted in the shooting death of Banko Brown.
The family of Brown, represented by Civil Rights Attorney John Burris, will be filing suit against Walgreens and the security guard. The announcement will take place on Friday at a press conference, a day after the funeral of Brown.
Michael Anthony, 33, was working as a security guard for the Walgreens at 4th and Market Streets in San Francisco, when he shot and killed Brown, 24, on April 27 while Brown was allegedly shoplifting at the store.
Burris sent a letter to the Attorney General requesting that he look at the case for possible prosecution.
“San Francisco DA (Brooke Jenkins) has chosen not to file criminal charges against the security officer,” Burris told the Vanguard. “”We disagree with that.”
Burris believes that Jenkins abused her discretion in failing to prosecute the case.
“The DA I think abused their discretion by choosing not to prosecute in the face of evidence where it’s clear that the security guard was armed, had a gun and roughed up this young man,” Burris said. “The young man was going out, Banko Brown was going out the back door. He paused, flexed a little bit, and he shot him, but he was, the young man was on his way out. The officer was not in any kind of immediate or imminent danger to his life or the lives of others.”
This week, Attorney General Rob Bonta informed Burris that he would look into the case.
“Our view on this case is that this is easily a voluntary manslaughter case or a second-degree murder case, depending upon one’s perspective, but it’s certainly a crime,” Burris explained.
Burris was baffled that Jenkins would not prosecute here.
“It’s pretty outrageous,” he said. “Particularly when all the justification was being made by the DA to support a position of non-prosecution, you have to wonder why she would engage in that.”
Burris said while the family is pleased with the AG’s decision to look into the case, “there’s no guarantee that the Attorney General would do that (file charges).”
He said, “He has a political office and sometimes he makes political decisions.”
Indeed, Bonta is widely believed to be lining himself up to run for Governor in 2026 when Governor Newsom would be termed out.
Burris also announced that they would be “filing a civil lawsuit this Friday against Walgreens, the security company, the security officer alleging (committing) wrongful death and on, on that part, but also taking a real look at the policies, practices that Walgreens had for their security officers.”
This case has been wrapped up with concerns about retail theft. Private security and the retail establishments have begun arming security guards and have taken an aggressive posture of attempting to stop people as they attempt to leave the store.
Burris said, “When you have people with guns, you can very well have a shooting, which we have here.”
Unlike cases against police officers, this is not a federal offense. So the lawsuit is filed in state court.
“The question is what are the standards for a security guard,” Burris said. “We know that they’re not police officers, so they don’t have that particular standing. They have the standing of anybody else who uses deadly force.”
It comes down to was “your life endangered” and “were you protecting it.”
He said, “You can’t create your own subjective self-defense.”
Overall, Burris said, “We’re pretty outraged by it.” He said, “A young person’s life was taken over a petty theft and that action was initiated by the physical aggressiveness of the security guard.”
Burris added that the security guard “apparently had been a little disgusted with the job. He was becoming a little put out by the fact that every day he’s chasing down people like this. So he was on edge, as he said.”
Burris added, “The DA is supposed to take care of the crime and/or the city attorney, but they haven’t. That’s on them.”
At this point why does any retail establishment want to still do business in San Francisco? If I were in charge of Walgreens I would close all of the SF locations. I hear Twitter might also be considering leaving SF. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Because they are being sued because a guard shot a fleeing shoplifter?
Because shoplifting is so out of hand in San Francisco and there’s no answer for the problem. Even when they try to take steps to curtail the theft they run the risk of what happened in this situation.
You still have to follow the law. You can’t just shoot a fleeing suspect.
I recall that the video shows Brown briefly advancing toward the guard (who was already pointing a gun at Brown). As such, the DA determined that an argument can be made claiming self-defense. She is likely correct – regardless of what a jury might find.
Personally, I think it could have been avoided, regardless. Starting with the confrontation prior to the shooting.
I would have a different point of view if the guard was a police officer, rather than a guard. In that case, I would determine the same sequence of events to be “fully justified” (though perhaps still avoidable). But truth be told, there’s a point at which I stop “blaming” the police, and instead focus on the person who caused the problem. And that point apparently occurs a lot sooner for me, than it does for you.
In other words, the progressive justice experiment has been a huge failure as witnessed by the degradation of several blue cities.
I’m not following your flow here
As evidenced by my previous comment, employer wage theft is an enormously larger issue that shoplifting in the United States. I would crack down on that first before worrying about small time shoplifting. ?
Who, exactly is the “family” of Banko Brown?
And where were they when this person needed help?
The money isn’t going to help Brown, at this point.
Burris makes his living off of these of cases. Is he the one who tracked down whatever “family” this person had?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burris
By the way, one could immediately tell that the guard was not “white”, since it would have been specifically brought up in the media if that was the case.
In further news, what in the heck were they fighting about at Banko Brown’s funeral today?
More about the fight at Banko’s funeral.
But it wasn’t all about a family quarrel, black reparations were also brought up during the funeral: