It was about 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 8 when a Tacoma police officer pulled up to a car on East 35th Street that he thought looked suspicious.
Bennie Branch, 24, got out almost immediately and began walking away. The 24-year-old was reportedly high on methamphetamine, had an Airsoft gun with him and a warrant out for violating a court order.
Less than five minutes later, Branch would be fatally wounded, shot seven times by a second police officer who said he thought Branch was about to pull a gun during a struggle.
Some people have cited Branch’s death as an example of police brutality against Black men in Tacoma. The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department investigated the shooting, and prosecutors are reviewing the case to determine whether the shooting was justified or warrants criminal charges.
Branch’s mother, who witnessed her son’s death, has filed an excessive force lawsuit against the city and Police Department.
The officer who shot Branch has been returned to duty.
The News Tribune gained access July 1 to 567 pages of police reports, computer-aided dispatch logs and officer and witness statements gathered as part of the Sheriff’s Department’s investigation into Branch’s death.
The records show how what started as a seemingly routine bit of police work turned deadly.
Checking on his mom
Branch had gone to the 1600 block of East 35th Street to check on his mother, who was living in her red Subaru Legacy and had parked there to sleep.
While there, he spotted a friend up the street and approached her Pontiac Grand Am to ask for a ride to Seattle.
He slid inside the vehicle, drawing protests from a 35-year-old man in the backseat.
“I was like no, there is no bringin’ this fool nowhere, we’re not doin’ anything,” the man later told investigators. “I don’t know who this fool is. I don’t know what he’s capable of doing.”
Inside the Pontiac were the man, his pregnant girlfriend and two other women.
As Branch pleaded for a ride and offered gas money, Tacoma police officer Angel Castaneda drove by on patrol and spotted the Pontiac idling and facing the wrong direction.
Castaneda recognized the car as being associated with past gun-related offenses and decided to contact the people inside.
While the driver and officer spoke, Branch jumped out of the car and walked briskly away.
He yelled that he was going to his car when Castaneda asked what he was doing.
Although Castaneda was concerned by Branch’s behavior and noticed he was holding his waistband, the officer continued speaking with the other four in the Pontiac and checking for weapons.
Castaneda found a gun on the driver and called it in to dispatch. He also gave a description of Branch, saying that he might be armed, and provided the direction he was headed in a red vehicle that later turned out to be that of Branch’s mother.
‘We needed to stop this car’
Officers Ryan Bradley and Aaron McNeely were en route to another call when they heard Castaneda come on the air.
Knowing Castaneda was working alone and was on a high-risk stop, Bradley flipped on his lights and sirens and headed to help.
Moments later, they spotted the red Subaru.
“And I knew unequivocally based upon what (Castaneda) was describing and the passenger actions and what he said, that I believed we needed to stop this car to detain and identify the occupant on what he had just, what he had just broadcast to us,” Bradley told investigators in a Sept. 11 interview.
Police pulled over the Subaru.
They could hear a woman screaming but couldn’t see anything because the back window was fogged.
The woman, later identified as Brendalin Branch, was in the driver’s seat. Her son was beside her “frantically doing something with his right hand around the steering column area,” Bradley told investigators.
The officer pulled out his gun and ordered Branch to show his hands, to put them in the air.
Branch didn’t comply, according to police reports.
Evidence recovered from the scene of the Sept. 8 fatal shooting of Bennie Branch in Tacoma. Pierce County Sheriff's Department
A struggle, then gunshots
McNeely opened the Subaru’s passenger door and reached in to try to pull Branch out, but Branch crawled on top of his mother.
Bradley put his gun away and took out a Taser. Then he radioed to dispatchers that Branch was trying to flee.
When Branch again refused to show his hands, Bradley shocked him with the Taser, but police said it was ineffective.
The officer noted Branch “seemed very amped up, very agitated.”
A third officer, Shawn Gustason Jr., arrived and tried to help McNeely gain control of Branch, who was flailing and wriggling.
Gustason shocked Branch with a Taser a second time, causing him to fall out of the Subaru onto the ground.
Police tried to get handcuffs on him but the struggle continued.
Branch at one point managed to get on his knees.
McNeely, who was struggling with him, later said he spotted the grip of a gun in Branch’s jeans pocket and yelled out to his partners.
He estimated that he hit Branch in the head and chest three to eight times and grabbed Branch’s right hand. McNeely later told investigators he worried Branch would use his left hand to reach for the gun.
McNeely called to Bradley that Branch was going for his gun, then pushed away from him and went to draw his own firearm.
As he disengaged from Branch, McNeely heard gunshots.
By this time, Branch was standing upright.
“I saw his left hand right at his waistband. Unequivocally I believed that he was going to access his firearm and shoot Officer McNeely, Officer Gustason, myself, or whoever this female was,” Bradley told investigators.
Police say Branch made a full turn and took about three steps before falling on his left side and rolling onto his back.
The gun, which turned out to be an Airsoft weapon, which resembles a real firearm but shoots plastic BBs, still was tucked in Branch’s pants.
Bradley reloaded his gun and placed the spent magazine in his pocket. He asked if the other officers were OK. Then he notified dispatchers shots had been fired.
Meanwhile, Brendaline Branch was screaming that they killed her son.
Seven gunshot wounds
McNeely approached Branch’s body and grabbed the Airsoft pistol, tossing it a few feet away.
Gustason checked Branch for injuries and began chest compressions as other law enforcement officers swarmed the scene.
Tacoma firefighters took over medical aid, but Branch was pronounced dead.
Bradley fired 11 rounds, according to a Pierce County sheriff’s report. Seven of those hit Branch — in the left arm, right arm, right side and three in the back.
When Pierce County sheriff’s detectives interviewed Bradley three days after the shooting, which is routine under current protocols, he told them he’d tried to use non-lethal force throughout the encounter but it didn’t work.
“I was absolutely afraid that he was gonna get this gun out, and he was just gonna start shooting at all of us. I mean that was, that was my legitimate fear,” Bradley said, noting that “it happened in as fast as a heartbeat.”
Bradley, 33, has been with the department for four years.
He was placed on paid administrative leave after Branch’s death, which is standard procedure after an officer-involved shooting. He has since returned to duty.
A diagram of the scene where Bennie Branch was fatally shot by Tacoma police Sept. 8. The red Subaru was driven by Brendalin Branch with her son in the passenger seat. The two white cars are Tacoma patrol vehicles. Pierce County Sheriff's Department
A distraught mother
Investigators took statements from at least 12 witnesses, including Branch’s mother and two people inside the Pontiac where he asked for a ride.
Nine people who live in the area said they heard yelling, police ordering someone to put their hands up and then gunshots, according to various witness statements.
Nobody aside from police witnessed the shooting other than Branch’s mother, and no video has been located. Tacoma police currently do not use body cameras or have dash-cams in their patrol cars.
Branch’s mother was hysterical after the shooting and continuously screamed as she was driven to Tacoma police headquarters on South Pine Street about 3:15 a.m., records say.
The officer who escorted her didn’t ask questions. He sat with her in the lobby until a chaplain came.
Police noted Brendalin Branch spoke incoherently, saying she saw an officer brush away the Airsoft gun before the shooting. She said an officer elbowed her son. She said her son was trying to get away so he didn’t go to jail.
A sheriff’s deputy picked her up and drove her downtown to speak with investigators.
On the ride, she allegedly yelled, “He didn’t have a gun. You didn’t have to shoot him. Y’all kicked the gun away from him. I want to die.”
Investigators weren’t sure at first she’d be able to compose herself to answer questions, but they started a recorded interview at 6:25 a.m.
She said she was sleeping when her son got in the car and asked her to drive. She knew he was high, was carrying a gun and had a warrant.
“Bennie told her that he wasn’t going back, they’re going to have to kill him. Brenda said she did not think he was serious. Bennie told her to go. She said Bennie tried to ‘floor it’ but she stopped the car,” according to a summary of that interview.
Brendalin Branch later said her son wasn’t in possession of the gun when Bradley opened fire, and that he was shot running away.
She has filed an excessive force claim in U.S. District Court in Tacoma, seeking more than $1 million in damages.
The Sheriff’s Department turned over its investigation to the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office Feb. 20.
Adam Faber, spokesman for the Prosecutor’s Office, said the case is still being reviewed and there is no timeline for when a decision will be made.
It is up to prosecutors to determine whether the shooting was justified, or whether Bradley should face criminal charges.
This story was originally published July 5, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
Stacia Glenn covers crime and breaking news in Pierce County. She started with The News Tribune in 2010. Before that, she spent six years writing about crime in Southern California for another newspaper.
