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Brandi Rene Baida

Age : 30

Gender : Female

Race : Latino/a/e

Date : 09/21/2021

Location : 12 Wheeler Street

City : Auburn

County : Cayuga

State : New York

Agency : Auburn Police Department

Officer(s) :Timothy Spingler; Michael Weeks

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during armed disturbance call

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 09/21/2021, Auburn Police Department Sgt. Timothy Spingler shot and killed 30-year-old Brandi Rene Baida at her home at 12 Wheeler Street after police responded to multiple 911 calls reporting gunfire in the residential neighborhood. Officer Michael Weeks also fired twice toward Baida earlier in the encounter but did not strike her. A later New York Attorney General investigation established through ballistics that Spingler fired the fatal shot.
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The first 911 call came at approximately 11:19 a.m. from a neighbor who reported hearing about three gunshots. At that point, neither the caller nor police knew where the shots originated; the caller initially speculated that someone might be shooting deer in woods behind the residences. Additional gunfire and 911 calls followed.
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Officers Katelyn Davis and Michael Weeks were initially dispatched. Davis arrived first and spoke with a neighbor who directed her attention toward 12 Wheeler Street. Davis approached the residence, heard a woman shrieking inside, saw a broken second-story window and then saw the barrel of a long gun protrude through the window. She drew her weapon, ordered the person to drop the gun and moved to cover.
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Weeks arrived shortly afterward. According to his later statement, he heard Davis ordering someone to drop the gun and saw a rifle barrel extending from the upstairs window. Police alleged that Baida fired from the window while officers and civilians were in the surrounding residential area.
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Weeks said he saw a muzzle flash and heard a rifle shot. Believing officers and other people were endangered, he fired one round toward the partially visible person in the window. When the rifle and the person's torso appeared again seconds later, Weeks fired a second time. Neither of Weeks' bullets struck Baida.
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The encounter continued for approximately another 13 minutes. Civilian cellphone video recorded three additional shots being fired from the second-story window while officers repeatedly ordered the person inside to drop the weapon and come out. Independent Ring-camera recordings also captured portions of the gunfire.
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Sgt. Timothy Spingler arrived carrying a .223-caliber patrol rifle. Police alleged that Baida continued firing intermittently despite repeated commands to stop. Spingler positioned himself behind a tree with Officer Jeremy Hinman and watched the upstairs window.
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Spingler later told investigators that he believed the shooter might be targeting Weeks and decided he would fire if the rifle appeared again. At approximately 11:40:57 a.m., seconds after another shot had come from the window, Baida appeared there again and Spingler fired once.
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There is an important qualification in Spingler's own account of the fatal moment. He told investigators that when he fired he believed he saw both Baida's torso and the rifle, but he could not say with certainty whether he actually saw the rifle at that instant or only Baida's torso. Hinman said he saw Baida appear in the window and believed she was still holding the rifle, possibly down near her side.
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Spingler's single shot passed through remaining window glass and struck Baida in the chest. It was the final gunshot of the encounter. The medical examiner determined that the bullet damaged both lungs, the pericardium and a branch of the right coronary artery, causing massive internal bleeding.
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Police did not immediately enter the residence because they believed another armed person might remain inside. Officers established a perimeter, attempted to identify and contact other people associated with the home and brought in additional Auburn police, Cayuga County sheriff's personnel, New York State Police and tactical resources.
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A drone finally entered the upstairs window at approximately 2 p.m. and showed Baida lying on the bedroom floor with a rifle on the bed. Police entered the residence at approximately 3 p.m., and paramedics formally pronounced Baida dead at 3:20 p.m. The medical examiner later estimated that she likely died from blood loss within 15 to 30 minutes of being shot.
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Investigators recovered a Mosin-Nagant 7.62x54R bolt-action rifle and eight spent rifle casings from inside the residence. Five casings were in the bedroom, two were in the upstairs hallway and one remained in the rifle chamber. Investigators also documented projectile strikes outside the residence, including in the roadway, a tree and a nearby shed. DNA testing identified Baida as the major contributor to DNA recovered from the rifle.
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Ballistics testing conclusively established which officer killed Baida. Weeks had fired two .40-caliber rounds, neither of which struck her. Spingler fired one .223-caliber round, and forensic comparison matched a bullet-jacket fragment recovered from Baida's body to Spingler's patrol rifle.
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New York Attorney General Letitia James' Office of Special Investigation conducted the independent investigation because Baida's death was caused by police. Investigators reviewed civilian cellphone and surveillance recordings, 911 calls, police radio traffic, witness interviews, police reports, forensic testing and the autopsy.
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On 03/18/2022, the Attorney General announced that Spingler would not be criminally charged. OSI concluded prosecutors could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his use of deadly force was unjustified because Baida had repeatedly fired a high-powered rifle from the residence into an occupied neighborhood and continued doing so despite police commands.
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The independent investigation nevertheless identified a significant transparency problem with the Auburn Police Department: none of its officers were equipped with body cameras when Baida was killed. Consequently, investigators had to reconstruct the encounter through civilian cellphone video, a neighbor's Ring camera, radio recordings, witness accounts and physical evidence. The Attorney General formally recommended that Auburn accelerate implementation of body-worn cameras.
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Auburn subsequently implemented the program. City records state that in 2021 it obtained a $120,000 U.S. Department of Justice grant, supplemented with federal ARPA money, to establish the department's body-camera program.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
Timothy Spingler fired the single shot that killed Baida. Michael Weeks fired two earlier rounds toward her but missed. Katelyn Davis, Jeremy Hinman and several additional Auburn officers also participated in the response but did not fire the fatal shot.
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The Attorney General's investigation provides unusually strong independent evidence concerning the two shooting officers. Weeks acknowledged immediately over police radio that he had fired, and investigators later recovered two .40-caliber casings associated with his handgun. Spingler fired only once, and forensic testing matched his .223-caliber casing and the bullet-jacket fragment recovered from Baida's body to his patrol rifle.
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The principal documented departmental problem directly connected to this shooting was the absence of body cameras. Despite the seriousness and duration of the armed encounter, no Auburn officer could provide body-camera footage because the department had not yet equipped its officers. The state Attorney General considered that deficiency important enough to make body-camera implementation the formal policy recommendation arising from its investigation.
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Auburn was already engaged in a state-mandated police reform process that year. Its 2021 Police Reform and Reinvention plan addressed use of force, de-escalation, racial bias, crisis intervention, duty to intervene and body-worn cameras, but full body-camera implementation had not occurred by the time Spingler killed Baida in September.
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The evidence surrounding Baida's actions is considerably stronger than in police killings that depend primarily upon officer testimony. Civilian video captured gunfire and smoke coming from the window; Ring recordings captured additional gunfire; investigators recovered eight fired rifle casings; projectile strikes were documented around the neighborhood; and forensic testing connected Baida to the rifle. The important evidentiary uncertainty concerns the precise instant of Spingler's fatal shot: Spingler himself could not state with certainty whether he saw the rifle alongside Baida when he pulled the trigger.
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SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.syracuse.com/news/2021/09/auburn-police-officer-involved-shooting-brandi-baida.html
https://www.13wham.com/news/local-news/suspect-in-auburn-officer-involved-shooting-identified
https://auburnpub.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/auburn-police-involved-shooting-fatality-investigation-update/article_3f45b61d-40d9-56b0-89ff-a3871f784b63.html
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-generals-office-special-investigation-opens-investigation-civilian-1
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2022/attorney-general-james-office-special-investigation-releases-report-death-brandi
https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/21-102_-_brandi_baida_report_final.pdf
https://www.auburnny.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif4131/f/uploads/new_york_state_police_reform_apd_final_draft_02242021.pdf