Officer Cleared in Shooting at Newport Beach

Finding no evidence of criminal wrongdoing, a county investigation has cleared a Newport Beach police officer who mistakenly shot and seriously wounded an unarmed Liberian immigrant along the beach last Labor Day weekend, the Orange County district attorney’s office announced Friday.

At the moment of the Sept. 4, 1988, shooting, Officer Derek Duncan “reasonably and honestly, albeitly mistakenly, believed that he was being confronted by a life-threatening danger,” investigators from the district attorney’s office concluded in ruling out the possibility of criminal charges.

Sundaga Bryant, a former Orange resident who now lives in Santa Ana, was critically wounded in his arms and torso by a single blast from Duncan’s .12-gauge shotgun. Bryant, 26 at the time, is now suing the city of Newport Beach and Duncan for at least $1 million in damages, claiming negligence.

Sawed-Off Shotgun Report

Newport Beach police, backed by Friday’s finding, said the officer honestly mistook the portable radio that Bryant was carrying for a gun in the early-morning shooting. Just moments earlier, police had received a report of a man on the beach carrying a sawed-off shotgun.

Bryant, stifled by the intense heat that September morning, took a walk along the Balboa shore with his wife around 2 a.m. About an hour later, after the report of a man with a shotgun, Officer Duncan spotted Bryant on the beach and ordered him to “freeze.” When Bryant began to turn, Duncan shot him once through the arms and torso, according to police accounts.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade refused to discuss details of his office’s investigation of the shooting, citing the ongoing civil litigation.

“I’m comfortable with the conclusion we reached,” Wade said. “There were a lot of factors to consider. Our feeling was that this was a tragic situation because Mr. Bryant was clearly an innocent victim caught up in this, and the intense emotions complicated our investigation.”

Bryant’s attorney, Christian W. Keena of El Toro, said he anticipated the county’s decision recommending against criminal charges but was still disappointed. “This is one of the worst negligence actions I’ve seen. I can’t see how it could be justified,” he said.

Keena said he respected the work of Wade’s office but added: “I think there might have been enough indication of wrongdoing to go to a grand jury with it. There has to be serious questions when you have an officer shining bright flashlights, and a man is shot at 12 feet from behind.”

Bryant could not be reached for comment. Keena described him as “very disappointed” and said he did not want him speaking with the press for several days. “He’s extremely depressed, and, in fact, I’m going to call his doctor. This is all very hard for him to understand.”

An avid soccer player, Bryant was employed as a taxi driver and a nurse at the time of the shooting, his lawyer said. Suffering from intense pain and almost total loss of mobility in both arms, Bryant has not been able to return to work, Keena said.

Keena said that with the criminal investigation over, he now hopes to move ahead with Bryant’s civil suit against the city and Duncan to prove what he called “a clear case of liability.”

The shooting stirred charges of racism from some members of the local Liberian community who characterized the incident as an unprovoked attack on a black man who was with a white woman--his wife.

But investigators said they found no evidence of racism. And Keena, after initially raising the race issue as a possible factor when filing Bryant’s civil suit, said Friday that he does not plan to pursue it.

Officer Duncan, a member of the department for 3 years, was placed on administrative leave immediately after the shooting, as is standard procedure in such cases, according to Newport Beach police spokesman Robert Oakley. A few weeks later, Duncan--then 25--returned to active duty after clearance by psychologists and investigators, Oakley said.

Department investigators concluded that Duncan, mistaking Bryant’s radio for a gun in the dark, had good reason to believe that he was threatened when Bryant turned toward him.

Moments after the shooting, police detained a 14-year-old boy with a pellet gun--the apparent subject of reports that morning of a man with a shotgun.

Bryant’s wife, Marlene Bryant, said she was sitting with the boy after the shooting and heard him ask an officer: “Am I the cause of this? Am I going to be blamed for this?” According to Marlene Bryant, the officer then responded: “Shut up. Haven’t you caused enough trouble? See what you made me do.”

Duncan did not want to speak with the press Friday about the case, Oakley said.

The shooting was one of two--both non-fatal--by a Newport Beach police officer in 1988, and the fifth in the county over the summer. Police spokesman Oakley said department investigators found no shortcomings in the way Duncan reacted to the situation that would warrant department policy changes.

On the question of the shooting’s implications for police procedures, Wade of the district attorney’s office said, “That’s up to the Newport Beach Police Department.”

The department, in a statement released after findings of the district attorney’s office were made public, also voiced “its concerns and regrets for the unfortunate incident in which Mr. Sundaga Bryant was shot. We wish to sincerely express our hope for a complete recovery for Mr. Bryant for his tragic injuries.”