Daily Mail – by ASHLEY COLLMAN and RYAN GORMAN
The father of the man shot dead on live television by Los Angeles police officers has broken his silence over the traumatic ordeal.
Bill Beaird, 80, watched as three LAPD officers shot son Brian Beaird 22 times after he led them on an hour-long car chase through the city before crashing his silver Corvette and spinning out of control.
The grieving father claims he told his son, 55, to pull over in a frantic phone call during the pursuit in which insisted he had done nothing wrong.
Bill Beaird said his dead son was a disabled vet who suffered from severe paranoia after brain tumor surgery that caused him to be discharged from the military – that paranoia fueled his paranoid flight.
Taken out: When broadcast live, Brian Beaird was seen running around the back of his car before being shot by police, clutching his stomach and falling over on the sidewalk
Bill Beaird told the Los Angeles Times he turned on the television soon after receiving the panicked call. He watched a sports car bob and weave its way through Los Angeles.
The chase looks like a scene out of Grand Theft Auto V, but this was no game.
His son Brian had just called, and frantically insisted he had done nothing wrong but was being chased by police.
‘Pull over,’ Bill Beaird told his son, ‘he said he was going to do it, but he didn’t do it.’
A military veteran himself, Bill Beaird watched a Corvette similar to his son’s, silver, speed through the city.
Soon the muscle car t-boned another car and spun onto the sidewalk.
The driver stumbled out of the bashed up vehicle, cameras rolling, hands in the air, back to the police.
‘I thought it was my son, but I wasn’t sure,’ Bill Beaird recalled.
LAPD officers opened fire with live rounds after they allegedly mistook the sound of a colleague’s non-lethal ‘bean-bag’ shotgun for a real gunfire.
More than 20 gunshots and several unanswered phone calls later it all made sense – Bill Beaird just watched police execute his unarmed son live on television.
On foot: After the crash, the DUI suspect tries to drive his totaled car but crashes it into a telephone pole while backing up and it won’t move. He is then seen getting out of the car
The elder Beaird said his son likely fled the police because he suffered from paranoia that developed after a 1988 surgery to remove a brain tumor.
He, along with KTLA anchors, briefly thought his son must have been shot with a Taser – the grim reality soon set in.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck told NBC News: ‘After hearing the preliminary briefing, I am very concerned about the circumstances that led up to and resulted in this Officer Involved Shooting.
‘Because of those concerns I have directed that the three involved officers be assigned home pending the final results of the investigation.
‘Determinations regarding training or possible disciplining of the involved officers will be made at that time.’
Video captured the moment when Beaird seemed to speed through a red light and crashed into the back half of a Nissan Maxima on December 17.
LAPD is investigating claims that when one officer fired a non-lethal ‘bean bag’ round, another mistook it for gunfire and used a real weapon.
‘The suspect got out of the vehicle and at that point, something occurred that prompted the officer-involved shooting,’ Lt Neiman said.
Crash: The Corvette’s tires were impervious to police spike strips so it was only when he rammed into another car that the chase came to a halt at the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Los Angeles Street
When the car chase was broadcast live by KTLA-TV, video showed the man getting out of his car, running around the back of the Corvette and heading up East Olympic Blvd before being shot, clutching his stomach and falling to the ground.
Lt Neiman says there was ‘great concern that he was going to hurt someone severely’.
LAPD Cmdr. Alexander Smith told 10news: ‘Policy dictates that the officer using the non-lethal bean bag shotgun notify other officers so they don’t think lethal force is being used’.
He added that part of the investigation will be whether verbal warning was given.
Beaird’s brother John said during the chase, Beaird called his father asking, ‘Why are they after me? I didn’t do anything.’
Won’t stop: The car chase started around 9pm in South Gate when police tried to pull over the unidentified driver of this silver Corvette for reckless driving and a possible DUI
Tracking: When the man refused to yield, police pursued the vehicle as it made its way through the streets of Los Angeles for more than an hour
Officers from three police agencies tailed the man for more than an hour starting at 9pm when police in South Gate attempted to pull him over for reckless driving and a possible DUI.
When the driver refused to pull over, police followed him in cars and with a helicopter as he spend through Cudahy, Huntington Park, South Gate, Walnut Park and into South Los Angeles.
Sky9’s Meghan Reyes reported that the man was driving without his headlights on and ‘just driving in circles’.
The man’s corvette was also outfitted with special tires that resisted puncture when police tried to use a spike strip to stop him.
The chase finally came to an end around 10:30pm when he sped through a light and hit another driver crossing the intersection in front of him in a T-bone collision.
The corvette spun all the way around before stopping on the side of the road at the intersection of South Los Angeles St and East Olympic Blvd.
The other car was thrown into a fire hydrant which sent water shooting into the air and spilling onto the street.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2527396/Devastated-father-tells-watched-live-TV-LAPD-cops-shot-dead-unarmed-son-chase-city.html#ixzz2o9DmDpmc
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Sorry, idiot could have killed innocent people, he deserved what he got.
Sorry I remember a time when cops had balls enough to
handle unarmed people without filling them full of holes.
Case you didnt notice we dont exactly live in the polite respectful world of the 50s, 60s, and even 70s anymore.
That is right kullafarmer and that is all the more reason that the cops should not be killing people. Think about it kulafarmer – we don`t live in the stone age like you seem to live in kulafarmer – you tell me why cops have stun guns, bone breakers, and always come with multiple cops to support them – nothing like 5 + cos on on suspect is there kulafarmer – and why do cops take up martial arts if they are so damned tough. The police really are the lowest of the low scumbags. !!!! Cops realy are evil 👿 and 😈
The cops i know are all pretty good folks, but i dont live in the contiguous 48, and i would rather the cops blow a few holes in some prick crackhead then the ass hole run over a kid or a friend of mine.
Agree to disagree, get your points but cant go along, sorry,
Respect bud,,,merry Christmas
@ 6:00 kulafarmer 🙂 . There is no respect from my side towards your side with your attitude!!! f@ck you you cop lovin` co*k sucker. Maybe you should speak for your own commie country then kulafarmer 😈
Cops were givin` stun guns to use. Why didn`t the cops use their stun guns instead of there service revolvers/guns? These cops just wanted to murder someone. If I am wrong then why didn`t the pigs use their stun guns. By the cops way of reasoning – we all should shoot a cop first !!! and I know a lot of cops that need a bullet dammit. F*ck them cops and their excuses. Arrogant bastards they are every one of them F`ers. Them cops need a bullet for christmas
Hey Digger. you are right. you cant trust them, even if they are your so called friends. there not… there just using you.
I really thought the world of my freinds and I whould have done anything for my brothers ad sisters. I would have a hard time doing it again though – seein as how it would be the rest of my BS life in prison for a cheap offence.. Hey Paul, keep the faith, I will be talkin` to ya bro.
hey friend see my email.
So he deserved to die kulafarmer? Well, let’s hope they never get a 911 call for your address.
@kulafarmer. Dude, I know you live in Hawaii, where the cops may be normal, but if you come to mainland, you’ll be in for the shock of your life. Just letting you know.
And if you have been to mainland and still believe in what you are saying, then I just have to say that the contamination in the water and air from the Fukushima radiation must be frying your brain cells right now.
Stun guns my eye I remember a time when cops would actually like tackle people. They give cops all those roids so they can bully people.
What they cant actually use those roid muscles to actually subdue
someone without a gun or a tazer?
“‘Determinations regarding training or possible disciplining of the involved officers will be made at that time.”
Training? For what? Fewer rounds fired for a kill? Was 22 times too excessive?
POSSIBLE ‘disciplining’??? Nothing short of murder charges would suffice.
btw, Kulafarmer, that’s the stupidest comment I’ve ever seen you make. I grew up here in L.A., and I had firsthand experience with these scumbags posing under ‘color of law’ many times when I was younger. They were vicious dogs back then (70s & 80s), and guess what? They sure as hell haven’t gotten any better over the years.
If you think cops are your friends, you’d better stay FAR away from L.A./So Cal. They’d as soon bury you here as look at you.
And if you think murdering an unarmed person is o.k., then you might want to check into a change of meds.
kula, every town in america has crooked cops so either your friends are hiding it from you really really well or your full of shit!