NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has learned BART has agreed to pay $4.4 million to settle an excessive force lawsuit filed by the survivor of a 2020 police shooting that was captured on officers’ body-worn camera video.
At the time of the Feb. 15, 2020 confrontation at the El Cerrito del Norte station, Cyrus Greene was 17. He admits he was armed and on juvenile probation for a gun and theft case at the time, but now insists he is a different person.
“I do think about it a lot every day,” Greene, now 20, said in an interview, “Because it’s changed my life.”
NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has obtained the officer-worn body camera footage of the incident that began before 2 p.m. on a Saturday.
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Greene was shot multiple times by a pair of pursuing BART officers who had chased him through the station. The video shows the officers pursuing Greene, with guns drawn, as he jumps onto the tracks. The officers soon fire after Greene comes back to retrieve the handgun that fell out of his pants.
He spent seven months in the hospital and underwent three surgeries for wounds to his head and body. He was left with nerve damage and only limited use of his left arm and hand. He also has a bullet still lodged in his jaw.
The officers who came to the station that day, dispatch recordings show, were responding to a report by a passenger that a man on the train had displayed a gun in his waistband during a heated argument with a woman on the train.
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Soon after arriving, video shows, the two responding officers spot Greene on the stopped train. He soon starts running down the aisle. “Let me see your hands!” one officer shouts to him.
One of the officers chases Greene inside the train, shouting: “Stop right there!”
As one of the officers pursues him in the train, the other runs alongside, down the platform, warning at one point: “You’re going to get shot!”
Greene keeps running out of the train and then jumps down onto the tracks. It’s the moment as he quickly turns back to grab the gun that fell out of his pants that the lead officer pursuing him shouts again: “Hey, You’re going to get shot!” That officer fired first, followed by the second officer.
The BART police chief at the time, Ed Alvarez, gave a statement the afternoon of the shooting saying, "officers got onto the platform, challenged that individual who ran off the train, down the platform and onto our trackway. At this point a gun was produced and our officers ultimately shot."
But Greene’s attorney Ben Nisenbaum argues the video shows that Greene didn’t actually “produce” the gun -- it simply fell out of his pants.
The video shows, he says, his client then picked up that weapon by the barrel, then turned around to resume running. The video shows that was the moment the officer shouted the warning about getting shot and opened fire.
Greene says while he shouldn’t have run from police that day, the officers didn’t have to shoot him.
“I did pick it up,” Greene said about the gun he went back to get, “but…that’s not justifiable to shoot me. I didn’t point it at them or nothing like that. I was running when I was shot.” He asked how police could “feel endangered if I’m running away from you? That doesn’t make sense at all.”
Still, BART’s attorneys argued that the shooting was reasonable because of the imminent threat Greene posed at the moment he went back and grabbed the gun.
Nisenbaum said BART’s case fell apart, however, when officers reviewed a slowed down version of the bodycam video.
“All your shots were fired at Mr. Greene after he had picked the gun up and turned to run away from you, correct?” Nisenbaum asked the first officer who opened fire during a deposition. The officer simply replied: “correct.”
“Our view was that Cyrus did not threaten anybody with the gun,” Nisenbaum said. “He didn't point the gun, did not take any action that was consistent with pointing the gun.”
Earlier this year, a judge in the case refused to grant BART’s motion to dismiss the case. Soon after that ruling, BART agreed to the $4.4 million settlement. The officers involved were not disciplined.
In a statement, BART said the officers were seeking to “lawfully arrest” Greene for an assault with a gun. Dispatch records show that the passenger reported in their call to authorities that Greene had displayed the gun in his waistband during the incident on the train.
“In fear for their safety and the safety of nearby patrons, two BART officers fired their weapons…” the agency said. “BART continues to deny wrongdoing but believes that the settlement is a fair resolution for all parties to the lawsuit.’’
Greene now spends his time raising his two year old daughter. He says he is relieved that the court case is over.
“I'm just glad that they finally had enough decency to own up to their wrongs,” Greene said, because “obviously, they were wrong…. I was just simply trying to get away.”
