Treyvon Frederick, a longtime friend of Brandon Durham, spoke emotionally during a press conference at Las Vegas City Hall. (Photo: Jeniffer Solis/Nevada Current)
The fatal shooting of a 43-year-old father inside his own home by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department after he called police to report a break-in is receiving national attention and prompting calls for action.
Brandon Durham’s family, friends, and community organizers are calling for the officer responsible, 26-year-old Alexander Bookman, to face criminal charges.
National civil rights attorneys Lee Merritt and Cannon Lambert are representing the Durham family. Merritt has represented other high profile cases, including the family of Ahmaud Arbery, who was murdered by two white men who claimed Arbery looked like a suspect in a string of local burglaries. He is also co-counsel for the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
“An arrest warrant should be issued immediately for the arrest of officer Alexander Bookman,” Merritt said at a news conference last week reported by KNTV.
On Nov. 12, Durham called emergency dispatchers to report a home invasion, telling them he was hiding with his 15-year-old daughter.
When Bookman and two other responding officers arrived at the home, they heard yelling and banging from inside the home, prompting Bookman to kick in the front door, said Assistant Sheriff Dori Korean at a news conference last week.
In body cam footage released by police, Bookman can be seen walking down a hallway in the home before finding Durham struggling with a woman holding a knife and wearing a ski mask.
In the video, Bookman yells “drop the knife” seconds before shooting Durham, causing him and the intruder to fall down. Bookman can then be seen shooting Durham five more times while ordering him to “put your hands up.”
Durham was pronounced dead at the scene, and the intruder, later identified as 31-year-old Alejandra Boudreaux, was arrested. Bookman is currently on paid leave while Metro investigates.
Durham’s family, friends, and community activists have expressed outrage over the deadly shooting. On Saturday nearly a hundred protestors marched on Las Vegas City Hall, demanding swift action against the officer who shot and killed Durham.
In a statement last week, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said an investigation could take months and “it would be inappropriate” for him “to express an opinion regarding whether criminal charges are going to be filed. I simply do not have all the information yet.”
In a statement to the AP, general counsel for the Las Vegas Police Protective Association union, David Roger, said Bookman was not at fault for the shooting.
During the protest on Saturday, NAACP Las Vegas branch president Quentin Savwoir urged Las Vegas residents to contact Wolfson and other elected officials and demand justice for Durham.
“It won’t get better until we demand better,” Savwoir said. “I don’t know that you can look at that video any other kind of way, other than to say that Brandon Durham’s life was taken erroneously and he was murdered.”
Treyvon Frederick, a longtime friend of Durham, reflected on the emotional toll of the fatal shooting on the community.
“I’m asking the people to speak, to scream his name, to blow up these phones, to do what y’all gotta do, to put this officer, to put this perpetrator in jail for the rest of their natural born life. I’m broken. The family is broken,” Frederick said.
“I want justice for him,” he continued.
Frederick also asked people to remember Durham’s brave actions to protect his daughter during the home invasion, before he was fatally shot.
“His daughter got to live with hearing her daddy get murdered. Are y’all understanding this? She gotta hear it for the rest of her life. Gotta see it, envision it. Listen to it. Play it on repeat. It’s on the internet, the world seeing her daddy get murdered,” Frederick said.
Elizabeth Glover, a sociologist and NAACP member said the shooting of Durham by a police officer is a reminder of the systemic issues that remain in law enforcement, and advocated for cultural training to address racial bias and improve police-community relations.
Glover asked Las Vegas residents to speak to their state representatives about prioritizing a police reform bill during the upcoming legislative session, asking people to get their support on the record before the Dec. 10 prefile deadline.
“Ask yourself, what can you do and how can you serve otherwise? Again, if you’re not a part of the solution, you are a problem,” Glover said.