Report on Killing by Deputy Sent

The Sheriff’s Department on Friday forwarded to the district attorney’s office and the San Diego County Grand Jury its 430-page investigative report into the May 18 shooting death of 21-year-old Jeffrey Bray in Vista.

The report, which was not publicly released, contained no conclusions of its own, sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Robbie Hill said.

District attorney spokesman Linda Miller said the report will be reviewed by the D.A.’s special operations division, which will conduct its own, independent investigation.

The district attorney’s office, Miller said, will decide whether criminal charges should be filed against sheriff’s reserve deputy John Wickham, who shot and killed Bray when Bray stopped his vehicle in a Vista apartment complex, then backed up into the sheriff’s patrol car that had followed him up the driveway.

Wickham and Deputy William C. Fewell had followed Bray into the apartment’s parking lot because they suspected that Bray was driving a stolen vehicle. He was not.

An eyewitness told The Times that he yelled out to Bray as Bray drove up the driveway, and that Bray simply stopped his car and backed up to talk to him without realizing that the sheriff’s patrol car had pulled up behind him. Bray was killed by a single shot to his head at just about the moment the two vehicles collided.

Bray’s parents on Thursday filed a wrongful-death claim against the county, seeking unspecified damages. Bray’s widow earlier had filed a similar claim.

The claim by Joe and Brenda Bray of Conway, Ark., alleges that Wickham and Fewell “improperly shot and killed Jeffrey Bray without justification or cause. . . . without warning and in violation of proper police procedure.”

The claim also named the county as a responsible party because it “failed to exercise reasonable care in promulgating policy, regulations and directives which resulted” in the shooting.

The Sheriff’s Department review of Bray’s death was completed four weeks to the day after the shooting, which sparked widespread criticism of the department and allegations that the deputies overreacted by shooting Bray after his vehicle backed into theirs.

The County Board of Supervisors has asked the grand jury to review the shooting, a request that is expected to be taken up after the 1990-91 grand jury is seated July 1. The FBI is also conducting an investigation to see whether Bray’s civil rights were violated.

The Sheriff’s Department material included not only a 430-page report, which represented its own internal investigation and interviews with witnesses, but also tapes and clippings of media coverage, photographs and tape-recorded interviews of witnesses, Hill said.

“It’s not the intention of our department to find a conclusion,” Hill said. “We’re providing the facts and evidence of the investigation, for the district attorney’s review.”

Miller said D.A. investigators will look beyond the sheriff’s report before making its own conclusion.

“We will conduct our own, independent investigation,” Miller said. “We’ll use some of the material provided by the sheriff’s office, but we’ll do our own, complete investigation, interview witnesses ourselves, maybe request additional lab work, the whole gamut. This will probably take a while.”

She noted that the district attorney will not review the Sheriff’s Department shooting policy or guidelines on the use of deadly force, but rather simply review the shooting “for any criminal conduct on the part of the officer.”

“If we find none, we’ll write a letter to the sheriff, explaining in some detail our findings and giving him a conclusion of our investigation. If we find criminal conduct on the part of the officer, we’ll file charges to prosecute,” Miller said.