‘I didn’t even see the cops. I didn’t hear nothing.’ : Shooting Victim Tells Story

Twenty days after police mistakenly shot and critically wounded him on the beach at Balboa, Sundaga Bryant of Orange made his first public appearance Friday, saying he had heard no warning from police and did not even hear the shotgun blast that felled him.

“I didn’t even see the cops,” he said in a weak, low voice. “I didn’t hear nothing. All I feel is pain (as I lay) on the ground . . . pain like I never felt before in my life.”

Asked whether he thought the shooting may have been racially motivated, Bryant said, “I honestly don’t know.”

Bryant, 26, a Liberian immigrant, made his statement during a press conference he called in Orange a day after his attorney had filed a claim with the city of Newport Beach for damages “in excess of $1 million.” The claim alleges deprivation of civil rights, negligence and false imprisonment, and it suggests that the incident could have been racially motivated. Such claims are the first step toward filing lawsuits.

Police say they were responding to a report of a man carrying a sawed-off shotgun on the beach west of the Balboa Pier just before 3 a.m. Sept. 4 when Bryant and his wife, Marlene, were spotted on the sand. It was a hot Labor Day weekend, and there was a scattering of people on the sand and on the pier.

Bryant had a portable stereo slung by a strap under his shoulder, and an officer approaching him mistook the stereo for a gun, police said. Marlene Bryant said the radio antenna was extended and the radio was playing, but probably not loud enough for the approaching officers to hear.

According to police, the officer shouted “Freeze!” and when Bryant turned toward him, the officer fired. According to Marlene Bryant, the officer fired immediately after shouting and her husband did not turn. Doctors said the shotgun pellets entered Bryant’s body from the left side, severely injuring his left arm, passed through his stomach and abdomen and injured his right arm.

During Friday’s news conference, Bryant was helped to a table in a hotel meeting room by his wife and his father, Daniel Martyn. Pins were set into both his arms, and braces were attached to the pins to prevent them from flexing. His voice was weak and his breathing labored.

Marlene Bryant said her husband has lost all mobility in his left arm, although some may return after months of therapy. His stomach, which still contains one shotgun pellet, and his abdomen are expected to heal completely, she said.

Sundaga Bryant said he and his wife had gone to the beach that night to escape the inland heat. He said he was standing facing his wife, and “in a split second, I was laying on the ground. I heard nothing. I didn’t hear the gun go off.”

He said he remembered an officer prodding him with his foot, apparently to find the gun police thought was there. “He said, ‘Oh . . . he’s carrying a radio!’ ” Bryant recalled.

Bryant said doctors have done what they can for him. “They’re not God. . . . If I heal or not, they don’t know.” He said he is in pain “24 hours a day. Life is very uncomfortable right now.”

Bryant called himself “a law-abiding citizen” and noted, “I haven’t been accused of anything.”

He said he has heard nothing at all from police. He added that decency requires that when a person does something so bad to another, you at least “say you are sorry,” he said.