A former LAPD officer wanted for murder flew overseas without being arrested

The former LAPD officer was able to fly in and out of the country several times and lived freely in Southern California for more than a year despite a warrant for his arrest in the 2015 slaying of a homeless man, according to his defense attorney and LA County prosecutors leading his pending murder case.

A grand jury indicted Clifford Proctor, 60, in September 2024, after the district attorney’s office reopened an investigation into the shooting of Brendon Glenn. Proctor shot Glenn, 29, twice in the back during an attempted arrest in 2015 in Venice Beach. Glenn was unarmed.

Proctor, who resigned from the LAPD in 2017, was not arrested until last October, when he was arrested by US Customs and Border Protection agents at the Los Angeles International Airport. Law enforcement sources previously told The Times that Proctor was returning to the country from an international flight when CBP arrested him on a murder warrant.

But in court in November, Proctor’s attorney, Tom Yu, presented exhibits and affidavits showing that his client was in the United States and planned to leave the country the day he was arrested. Travel documents filed as exhibits in court filings show Proctor was scheduled to fly from Los Angeles to Panama City on Oct. 16, 2025.

An affidavit from Proctor’s wife submitted to the court by his attorney shows he has flown internationally to the Caribbean island of Trinidad four times since September 2024, when the indictment was filed. When he was away, Proctor lived in LA County, according to Yu, who said the district attorney’s office never made an effort to arrest the former police officer.

Yu said his client did not know he was wanted for murder until he was arrested at LAX last year. The Times first reported that a warrant had been issued for Proctor’s arrest on October 17, 2024 – almost a year to the date before he was arrested.

Greg Risling, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, confirmed that investigators searched Proctor’s home in Carson in October 2024. But when his arrest warrant was issued, Risling said, Proctor was nowhere to be found.

Prosecutors soon learned that Proctor had flown to Trinidad as part of a trip he had planned earlier this year, according to Risling. Proctor was due to re-enter the US through Miami in late October 2024, Risling said, and investigators are headed to Florida to arrest him.

“It was later determined that Mr. Proctor had canceled that return flight and it is unknown why,” Risling said.

Yu said he had no information about the alleged changes to his client’s flight plans. Risling said prosecutors did not know Proctor was in the US at any time last year and confirmed the agency did not try to arrest him, or search his home in Carson, in 2025.

“If we knew where he was, he would have been locked up,” said Risling.

Asked about the lack of urgency to arrest the accused in the murder case, Risling said Proctor is not a threat to the public.

“Mr. Proctor was charged with shooting and killing a man while on duty as a Los Angeles police officer, a situation that will not happen now that Mr. Proctor is no longer in the force,” he said.

Legal experts say it’s unusual for someone wanted on a murder charge to have an arrest warrant pending for a year – especially when he often travels overseas.

Proctor’s warrant should have been automatically flagged by the US Department of Homeland Security’s database whenever he entered or left the country, according to Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor.

“It would be unusual for someone with a warrant to kill to be able to travel freely outside of the US,” Rahmani said. “Why if there was a warrant out for him in LA, he wasn’t arrested?

Even Proctor’s attorney seemed confused about the way the district attorney’s office handled the case.

“He was here in the US. What happened to all of 2025? He was there. Did they just let a year skip? Sorry, have we forgotten?” said Yu, a former LA County sheriff’s deputy, who described the failure to act on the warrant as “reckless.”

A CBP spokesman said agents met with Proctor several times “at airports outside the state of California” after the indictment was issued. However, the terms of the warrant prevented them from making an arrest.

“The warrant was for ‘in-state pick-up only’ and did not allow for shipment to California,” the spokesperson said.

A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office said the warrant was filed by special prosecutor Lawrence Middleton, who was employed by then-Dist. He said. George Gascón to re-examine Glenn’s death. Both Gascón and Middleton declined to be interviewed for this article.

The incident that led to the murder case occurred in May 2015, when Proctor and another LAPD officer, Jonathan Kawahara, responded to calls about Glenn and his dog causing a stir in Venice Beach.

Glenn had just been kicked out of a bar and got into an argument with Proctor over his dog’s behavior, authorities previously said. Proctor threatens to shoot the animal. Glenn responded by hurling several racial slurs at Proctor. Both men are Black.

Glenn went to another bar, where he got into an argument with the driver who refused to let him in. When police went to arrest Glenn, a struggle ensued and Proctor shot the 29-year-old man twice in the back, killing him.

Proctor’s lawyers previously said the officer thought Glenn was looking for his partner’s gun. In explaining his decision not to charge Proctor with a crime in 2018, former Dist. He said. Jackie Lacey said it was not inappropriate for Proctor to open fire based on the belief that Glenn was trying to arm himself with Kawahara’s weapon.

But video evidence from the scene did not show Glenn reaching for the gun, and Kawahara told investigators he did not believe Glenn would have reached for his gun when he was shot.

Glenn’s death caused a public outcry, and some law enforcement leaders strongly disagreed with Lacey’s findings. Former LAPD Chief Charlie Beck has publicly called for Proctor to be charged with a crime and the city’s police commission found the shooting unjustified. After ousting Lacey in 2020, Gascón hired a special prosecutor, Middleton, to re-examine several of his decisions on abuse of power cases.

Middleton was found guilty of murdering Proctor on September 20, 2024, according to the transcript of the grand jury trial that was made public last year. But Middleton asked a grand jury to wait to issue an arrest warrant until Oct. 3, 2024, because authorities needed “an opportunity to locate the defendant,” according to the document.

On the 2nd of Oct. 2024, Proctor flew to Trinidad, where he holds dual citizenship, according to his wife’s court declaration. Yu said his client had a “pre-arranged vacation” to Trinidad and was not trying to evade justice.

Proctor flew in and out of the US on international flights multiple times after the warrant was issued, according to his wife’s declaration, which was filed in a motion to reduce his bail.

Proctor then took flights to Trinidad and Barbados, another Caribbean island, and returned to the country without incident three times between December 2024 and September 2025, according to his wife’s statement.

Based on a timeline laid out by the district attorney’s office, all efforts to find Proctor ended after Gascón lost to current Los Angeles County Dist. He said. Nathan Hochman in the November 2024 election.

Proctor’s case could be a test of Hochman’s commitment to prosecuting cases of police misconduct.

Hochman criticized Gascón’s handling of police prosecutions and fired Middleton shortly after taking office.

In his only public statement about Proctor’s case, Hochman pointed to Lacey’s decision not to prosecute the former officer and said his newly appointed special prosecutor, Michael Gennaco, will be reviewing the case going forward. Gennaco declined to comment.

A review of grand jury documents in the case — which has not been made public before — suggests Middleton has gathered strong evidence against Proctor.

Both Proctor’s ex-partner and a local bar employee who had an altercation with Glenn shortly before the fatal encounter testified against Proctor, according to documents.

Kawahara, who was Proctor’s partner at the time, said Glenn did not hit him or try to disarm him. The junior officer appeared confused by Proctor’s decision to use deadly force.

When the bullets were flying, Kawahara said he hadn’t even considered the need to use his Taser on Glenn, which is lethal force, according to the documents.

“I did not hear or see Mr. Glenn trying to disarm me,” Kawahara testified.

DiMario Thomas Sr., a bar bouncer, told the grand jury that Glenn was clearly intoxicated and resistant to officers. But he also did not see Glenn reach for the gun of any officer and told the grand jury that he was shocked when Proctor pulled the trigger.

LAPD Officer Clifford Proctor walks on crutches in Venice near the scene of the shooting of Brendon Glenn, an unarmed homeless man, in 2015.

(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

“In my head, I thought it was a big ass Taser … I didn’t see it [Glenn] do anything worth shooting,” Thomas said, according to the transcript.

After Proctor opened fire, Thomas said the officer followed him back to the bar, apparently seeking reassurance that the bouncer would back his decision to kill Glenn.

“The officer walked in, he said something like ‘Mario, you saw him – you saw him – you saw him take my gun,'” Thomas said. “I looked at his face and said, ‘I didn’t see him—.'”

The district attorney’s office said it has not made a final decision on whether to take Proctor to court. He will appear in court again next month.

Proctor was released from custody last November on $100,000 bail. In a recent court hearing, Yu asked the judge to allow Proctor to travel to Seattle for work. The district attorney’s office did not object.