D.A. Dumanis explains decision to call in outside consultant in Nehad shooting incident

On January 18, inewsource.org reported that "of the 155 police-involved shootings since 2005... the investigation of the fatal shooting of an unarmed man in April in San Diego’s Midway District represents the only time the DA’s Office has consulted an outside expert to help determine whether a shooting was justified.” Today, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis held a press conference to explain the extraordinary circumstances surrounding this unusual move.

“As you know,” said Dumanis, “U.S. District Judge William Hayes freed Nehad’s family to release the surveillance video showing the shooting to the public. And as you know, we moved quickly to release the video first, in order to provide sufficient context to justify the shooting. We also provided a synchronized audio track of the communication between Officer Browder and police headquarters in the moments leading up to and following the incident. Now, Judge Hayes has further ordered that we release the full and unedited version of that audio, including the portions where Officer Browder suggests that Mr. Nehad might be a zombie, due to his unusual, shambling walk, which is visible in the surveillance video.

"In order to provide proper context for this supposition — which frankly goes a long way toward explaining Browder’s failure to identify himself as a police officer, or to tell Mr. Nehad to stop walking toward him prior to firing his weapon — we called in an expert. Glen Mazarra was the show runner for the hit AMC series The Walking Dead for two seasons, and knows more about how zombies walk than just about anyone. He confirmed Officer Browder’s observation that Nehad’s odd gait matched that of a ‘walker,’ and also the futility of warning a zombie to stop advancing or risk getting shot. A zombie’s hunger is insatiable, much greater than its respect for law enforcement or even its fear of bullets. And besides, it’s not even clear that they understand language. They may look human, but let me be clear: zombies are not people.

“Unfortunately, Officer Browder’s suspicion that Mr. Nehad was an undead killing machine turned out to be mistaken, just like his suspicion that Mr. Nehad was carrying a knife. But still: I think we can all agree, based on Mr. Mazarra’s analysis, that the shooting was totally justified.”