Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Files: The Quick and Brutal Death of Bryan Carreño
High, Suicidal, and Carrying a Knife, He Was Killed in a Hail of 27 Bullets
In June, following the death of George Floyd and amid renewed scrutiny over how and when law enforcement officers use physical force against civilians, the Independent filed a California Public Records Act request with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office for information on serious use-of-force incidents dating back to 2010. The Sheriff’s Office is releasing the records on a rolling basis, and these reports will be published as the information is made available.
The deputies had been looking for Bryan Carreño for more than two and a half hours when they finally cornered him, and themselves, on the small back patio of a La Cumbre–area home he’d broken into.
Body-camera footage from Senior Deputy Kenneth Rushing, one of two ranking members of the Sheriff’s Office team that night, February 12, 2017, first shows Rushing warning Carreño that he’s about to unleash his dog. Seconds later, Carreño exits the patio’s French doors, walks off the landing, and takes a step toward the deputies. He carries a 12-inch kitchen knife in his right hand and is high on methamphetamine and fentanyl. The deputies shout at him to stop. Carreño yells back at them to shoot.
