​San Rafael ​At Odds With Black Man Detained At Gunpoint

SAN RAFAEL, CA — In an era brimming with fury over police misconduct and racism, the detaining of a Black man by San Rafael police at gunpoint during a traffic stop in August raised the specter of both.

Now the man, who hadn't done anything wrong and was just driving home, is grappling with the aftermath of a terrifying event. And the city is facing a legal claim, defending its actions, and trying to find a way forward that acknowledges the distress its officers caused.

Officers had handcuffed the man, 55-year-old mail carrier Karl Bracy of Fairfield, for several minutes on Aug. 7 even as it became apparent that he was likely not the person being sought as a possibly armed suspect in a reported carjacking. After searching his car, the officers apologized and sent him on his way.

"I was shook, scared, thinking of what's going on in the world today, thinking that I was actually going to be shot," Bracy said.

On Sept. 21, more than a month after officers stopped Bracy at rush hour on the side of southbound U.S. Highway 101, and after Bracy had filed a claim against the city, San Rafael City Attorney Rob Epstein briefed the City Council.

He said, "I'm talking about it tonight because we are expecting an IJ (Marin Independent Journal) article to come out shortly about the incident. We thought it was important to bring it to the attention of the community tonight."

Epstein seemed to try to position the city in support of its officers but also of Bracy, a longtime U.S. Postal Service worker who was wearing his uniform and identification badge at the time of the traffic stop.

Epstein said of Bracy, "I can tell you that because the individual to whom this happened was Black, I can't even imagine how terrifying that must have been for that individual."

Of the officers, Epstein said, "With regard to the technicalities of the police procedures and practices, everything that they did was done correctly."

Epstein also told the council that on Sept. 16 he had extended an invitation to Bracy — whose claim against the city is for unspecified damages in excess of $25,000 — asking if he would join in a "restorative justice" session with the police officers who'd detained him.

The goal, Epstein told the council, was to create an opportunity for the officers and Bracy to "gain a mutual understanding to hear one another about what they experienced in the incident. And hopefully for an experience, for everyone concerned, of healing."

"I want my life back, actually," Bracy said. "Because my life is completely changed. I have two sons and I have a grandson, and I didn't think I was going to make it out of that situation."

He added: "To see four, five guns pulled on you, I feared for my life and now it's like when I see it on TV, when I see police driving by — I fear."

Bracy, who has delivered mail in San Rafael for 20 years, has taken a leave from his job and said he is under psychiatric care including medication.

"I don't know what to even think," he said. "There has not been one day that I haven't thought about it. It's on my mind every day. I tried to go to work but I think about it every time I drive past the spot where they pulled me over."

On Sept. 25 — the day the Marin Independent Journal published an article about Bracy's claim against the city — the city's Police Department posted a 15-minute video on YouTube.

In it, Chief Diana Bishop explained why her officers, while searching for an allegedly carjacked white Chevrolet sedan, instead pulled over Bracy, who was driving a different model white Chevrolet sedan, at 6:25 p.m. on a Friday as he headed for home.

Early in the video, which includes 911 recordings and body camera footage from one officer involved in the incident, Bishop says, "Despite the similarity, it was the wrong car. We made a mistake. This kind of mistake is rare, but it happens."

In the video, she said that officers had not been told the suspected carjacker's race or ethnicity and did not know Bracy's race until after they pulled him over because his car had tinted windows.

In a separate interview, Bishop said, "The mistake was made based on information that was very reasonable ... like where it (the reported carjacking) occurred, when it occurred, where his car was first seen, what his car looks like. All the puzzle pieces fit. Any police officer worth their salt would have stopped that car."

Bracy said, "After I saw the video I was actually broken-hearted to see what she put out there. Like they did everything right."

The car reported stolen from a supermarket parking lot was a white 2017 Chevrolet Impala with black wheels, tinted windows, and stickers on its handles.

Bracy, who is based at a post office less than a mile from the scene of the alleged carjacking, was driving a white 2011 Chevrolet Malibu — the word Malibu clearly visible on its trunk lid — with black wheels but bearing no stickers.

He said the car, which he has since sold, had a tinted rear window but that the side windows were not tinted.

"There were enough clues before they stopped him that would have suggested this wasn't the car," said John Burris, a prominent civil rights attorney who filed the tort claim against San Rafael on Bracy's behalf.

"That's what the problem is: being more careful before you stop someone, and put guns on them, and frighten them half to death," Burris said.

Bishop's video breaks down the steps that San Rafael police officers took, while communicating with emergency dispatchers, as they followed Bracy for about five blocks.

At one point Officer Joseph Jordan reported inaccurately that "multiple occupants" were in the car. Bracy was pulled over on Highway 101 and forced from his vehicle by officers aiming what Bishop said was a mix of lethal and non-lethal weapons at him from a distance of perhaps two car lengths.

The video said that the information about the stickers on the car's handles wasn't transmitted to officers until they had pulled over Bracy and he was exiting his car; body camera footage appears to support that account.

Bracy was then handcuffed and placed in a patrol car, its door left partially open, for about four minutes while officers searched his vehicle, according to additional body camera footage that Bishop provided to Bay City News upon request. Jordan and another officer then apologized to him
before ushering him back onto the highway.

Bishop said she released the video "to show that we made an honest mistake based on stopping the wrong vehicle and that in the times we're in, we really want to be as open as we can. And if you just at some point release raw video, sometimes there's not context. So we wanted to present a timeline of what occurred and what information the officers had at the moment decisions were made, to show kind of what happened and just have our narrative heard as well."

The claim Burris filed alleges Bracy suffered injuries including that he'd been detained at gunpoint without explanation, "forcing (him) to fear for his life" (Bracy said four armed officers stopped him, Bishop said three did and that three more arrived later); that he'd been "unlawfully
detained"; and that his safety had been threatened in a situation where officers had no reasonable basis to believe that he posed a threat to anyone.

Bracy asked Jordan what was happening as he climbed into the patrol car on Jordan's order. But it wasn't until officers had searched his car and declared it to be clear and had then been instructed to "break," but before his handcuffs were removed, that Bracy was told about the carjacking
report and the reasons for the mix-up.

The Impala was discovered, with the engine still running, in Vallejo a few hours after the carjacking was reported. The case is under investigation with some strong leads, Bishop said.

In an interview, Bracy did not say explicitly that he was pulled over — or detained in the manner that he was — because he is Black.

But he is convinced that, contrary to Bishop's assertion, the officers who pulled him over knew that he was Black.

He said that because it was a hot day and his air conditioning is slow to work, his front windows were down as he drove by three police officers parked near the 7-Eleven where he stopped after work to get a bottle of water before heading home. They would have seen him then, he said.

"I remember driving past and I looked over again," Bracy said.

"They saw me when I went past. They followed me immediately. Right when I passed by them, they got behind me."

Bishop insisted that Bracy's race did not figure into his being pulled over. She said that the report of the car theft did not specify the race of the alleged carjacker. Also, she said, her officers did not know Bracy's race until he'd been stopped on the highway and had exited the car.

Bishop also said that Jordan was not parked at the 7-Eleven, which is on B Street, but rather was driving north on B Street when he spotted Bracy's car.

The 911 audio included in the Police Department video does not include mention of the alleged carjacker's race, nor of Bracy's. There was also no mention of Bracy's or the alleged carjacker's race in the 7 minutes and 35 seconds of Jordan's body camera footage included in the video, or in the additional body camera footage.

Burris said, "An injustice was done, period. I don't have any information right now that they knew who he was or what his ethnic background is. But the fact that he is a Black man makes it even worse. I don't know that they didn't know; that's what they claim. Right now, to me, it's an
injustice. I can't say they pulled him over because he was Black. I look at it as a potential racial profiling case."

For Bracy, the injury extends to what happened after being pulled over, that officers ignored the fact of who he was and handcuffed him despite their apparent knowledge that he was not who they were looking for.

In the additional body camera footage that Bishop provided, as Bracy — in a knee brace, his hands up and wearing a postal service shirt and shorts — edged carefully backward toward Jordan, he said: "I'm a post office worker."

Jordan replied, "Yeah, yeah, I understand, Keep coming, keep coming, put your hands behind your back."

The body camera footage shows that at least once before Bracy exited his car, and again as he walked backwards toward Jordan with his arms up, officers suggested they likely had stopped the wrong person.

At one point, while an officer gives Bracy instructions — "Driver, go ahead and open the car from the outside, do it now" — another officer says to Jordan, "Did you hear that traffic about the RO (registered owner) info?"
Jordan answered, "No."

The other officer said: "We don't necessarily have a match."

Jordan said: "Oh, we don't?"

The officers continued to instruct Bracy to exit his car, which he did.

Shortly after, as Bracy walked backward with his hands up toward Jordan, an officer called out, "So I'm just going to suggest we just bring him all the way back so we can clear this since it doesn't sound like it's a match."

Several seconds later, as Bracy reached Jordan at the side of the patrol car, one officer said to another, "Dude, I know that all I heard is the RO (registered owner) info, but it sounds like it wasn't a match. It should come back to something (indecipherable name) and this one isn't that."

In the video, Jordan, who handcuffed Bracy and had the most interaction with him throughout the stop, said to Bracy after removing the handcuffs, "When we were about three quarters of the way through getting you out of the car it started to come out that there were some stickers on the side and it became pretty apparent that it probably wasn't gonna, wasn't a match, so I apologize for the day."

Bracy answered: "No problem, man."

Jordan said: "You have a good night, OK."

It was necessary to handcuff Bracy, said Bishop, because the stop was on the side of a highway, it wasn't confirmed that Bracy was the wrong person, and it was still possible that an armed carjacker was in the vehicle.

"There was a probability that it was not a match, not a certainty," Bishop said, adding, "The shoulder of a freeway is a dangerous place. Once we stop anyone on a roadway, their safety is our responsibility.

It was safer for all involved to place Mr. Bracy in handcuffs."Bishop — who on Sept 8, two days before the city received Bracy's claim, called him to talk about what happened and to apologize — said she is deeply distressed about what took place.

"I'm so sorry that he went through that," Bishop said. "No one should ever go through that; an innocent person should not go through that. I can't imagine what it's like just in general, but I can't imagine what it would be like today, now, as a person of color being pulled out of that car at gunpoint, because that's what happened and it has to be traumatizing any day. It had to be awful. And it has to be awful."

Epstein said the city hasn't decided how to respond to the claim.

Regardless, he said, he hopes Bracy will consider the invitation to a restorative justice meeting.

Restorative justice is a practice of bringing people who have harmed someone together with their victims to achieve some form of reconciliation and path forward.

"We sort of struggled with the label (restorative justice) because in this case there wasn't any crime that occurred by anyone and there really wasn't anything unlawful that anyone did. But there was real harm that occurred to Mr. Bracy because of the way this incident played out," Epstein said. "I'm really hopeful that Mr. Bracy will consider the invitation, because it could be a really positive thing for everyone involved. But if he doesn't, we will respect that, regardless of the claim."

Neither Bracy nor Burris have responded to the invitation yet.Bracy remains afraid that the traffic stop could have easily turned fatal.

"I'll be very frank, I feel that the outcome came out different because I had that U.S. Postal uniform on," he said.

Had he been wearing a hooded sweatshirt, Bracy said, "I don't feel I'd be sitting here telling my story, I really don't believe that."

As for what he wants, he said, "This shouldn't have happened to me. This should not have happened to me. I can't just say, 'I'd rather they give me a settlement' or none of that, that's not going to make me be who I was."

By Jeremy Hay / Bay City News Foundation

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