Cop Out

How Black Oaklanders finally expelled the school police

- By Edwin Rios

ONE WINTER NIGHT IN OAKLAND nine years before a police officer knelt on George Floyd’s neck, Raheim Brown and his friend Timesha Stewart, both 20, were smoking weed in a Honda, hazard lights blinking. It was 9 p.m., and two cops who had been patrolling a school dance near Skyline High School approached the car. They were Barhin Bhatt and his partner, Jonathan Bellusa, both ser­ geants with the Oakland School Police Department. At the time they did not know the Honda had been stolen. They would claim they decided to investigate because they thought the car was parked in a strange spot.

Pretty much everything that happened next is still in dispute. Bhatt walked up to the driver’s side, where Stewart was seated, and began speaking to her. Brown told her to drive away, reaching over and jamming a screwdriver into the ignition. Bellusa opened the passenger door and grabbed Brown by the collar to stop him. When Brown resisted, a violent struggle ensued. Bellusa believed Brown was stabbing him in the upper chest, though Stewart insists the screwdriver never left the ignition, and a forensic analysis found no strike marks on Bellusa’s shirt or vest.

“Shoot!” Bellusa yelled. He says he spot­ ted a revolver in the passenger door, though Stewart insists there was never a gun in the car and that the one found by police had been planted after the fact. “Gun!” Bellusa shouted. Bhatt shot Brown seven times. Stewart would later recall her friend’s plea: “Help me, sis.” He passed away in that pas­ senger seat, his hands resting on his lap.