Shoot him. Shoot him, for God's sake! That's the first reaction almost anyone would have to the chilling dashcam video of a crazed, rifle-wielding man charging a terrified young cop.
Something snapped in the brain of Andrew Brannan after a traffic stop, and the video shows him capering around wildly, then coming after Laurens County Deputy Kyle Dinkheller, who repeatedly tries to talk him down.
A bullet should have smashed into Brannan’s skull. But Brannan did not die that night. Dinkheller did, struck at least nine times, the kill shot coming after Brannan reloaded and returned to finish off the screaming, wounded deputy.
On that night, Jan. 12, 1998, Brannan was evil incarnate, a cop’s worst fear. Today, he’s a 66-year-old who looks Captain Kangaroo and is set to be executed Tuesday.
Executions always bring out last-minute appeals by lawyers, shrinks and family members. Usually the condemned was a good boy at heart but had some bad breaks, was mentally ill or beaten as a child.
This time is different. A collection of combat veterans, including a brigadier general, have banded together to save Brannan’s life. Their plea? The condemned is a Vietnam veteran suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and bi-polar disorder, a man absolutely off his rocker — and meds — that night.
Documents filed on Brannan’s behalf describe him as a mild-mannered, bespectacled lieutenant who volunteered to fight in Vietnam, cared deeply about his men and slogged into the jungles, sometimes for months, on combat missions in an unpredictable, terror-filled hellscape.
Brannan’s supporters will present their arguments to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, asking the five-member panel to commute his sentence to life in prison.
The ranking member of the mercy brigade is retired Brigadier Gen. Michael Seely, who served two tours in Vietnam and later commanded the Georgia Army National Guard.
“Mr. Brannan committed a crime,” Seely acknowledged in a letter to the panel, “but in good conscience this nation cannot execute its honored combat veterans when they commit crimes that directly have their origins in the harms done to them by their dedicated performance of assigned duties.”
Seely will not appear before the board, but four other Vietnam veterans will, as well as a Marine who saw combat in Iraq and has studied PTSD.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is now a huge issue, not only with aging vets who fought in the jungles of Vietnam, but for a new generation of warriors who spent the last 13 years fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Estimates say perhaps 20 percent of the more than 2 million who fought those wars will suffer PTSD.
Brannan’s hearing will bring a second parade of witnesses to testify on behalf of the state, telling the board why Brannan needs poison in his veins.
Bill Harrell became Laurens County sheriff years after Dinkheller was executed on the roadside. He wants to know what’s wrong with the deputy’s killer dying on a prison gurney? It’s all about closure for the family, he figures. And retribution, which is what the death penalty is at its core.
“I feel it’s an eye for an eye,” he said. “The jury made a decision and they need to carry through with it. What if it was your family? How would you feel?”
I couldn’t reach the prosecutors, but I imagine they, too, will tug heartstrings. The 22-year-old Dinkheller left behind a wife, an 18-month-old daughter and a son yet to be born.
The video itself is heart-wrenching. Deputy Dinkheller remains polite for a good long while, instructing Brannan, whom he clocked at 98 mph, to pull his hands from his pockets as the motorist strides from his pickup toward the squad car. Brannan starts jogging frenetically in place, waving his arms and dancing as he yells, “Here I am! here I am! Shoot my (blanking) ass.” He then rushes the deputy several times, screaming that he’s a Vietnam combat veteran.
And then he retreats to his truck, rummages around inside for several seconds and emerges with his .30 caliber M1 rifle.
“I fear for my life, put the gun down!” the doomed deputy yells, his voice rising and cracking. For several seconds, there’s a tense standoff — and then shooting starts. It’s unclear who fired first.
Later, the vet said he felt the officer didn’t show him proper respect. An agent testified Brannan said, “The boy just wouldn’t leave me alone.”
The video has been used nationally in training to instruct officers about the dangers of “hesitation and indecision,” said John Roberts, firearms director at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center.
“When he makes his way back to the vehicle and we can’t see his hands, that’s as big a red flag as you can have,” said Roberts.
Should Dinkheller have shot him then?
No, said, Roberts, Brannan could have been retrieving his license or cell phone. He said officers must keep focused on “what the hands do.”
Brannan pleaded insanity, but the video helped drive jurors to a quick guilty verdict and as quick a death sentence. Brannan’s lawyers, his new attorneys argue, never brought up any of his PTSD or other mental issues in the sentencing phase, even though the veteran had received 100 percent disability, which is hard to get.
“The video inflamed so many people,” said Harold Nash, a Marine Vietnam vet who works with disabled veterans and is scheduled to testify on Brannan’s behalf. “But I saw a guy who was completely unhinged. The record makes clear the origin of his undoing.”
VA records show a man unraveled. Brannan was “very tense, talked rapidly and breathlessly” as he described a failed career at IBM, a marriage that imploded and a mental devolution that had him living for months in the woods, wandering in California and on the Appalachian Trail. His brother, a Vietnam vet, killed himself. Another brother, who also was in the military, died in a plane crash.
His squad, documents show, went into the jungle at night to set up ambushes. He was also a forward artillery fire adjuster. Over eight months, he was in the field all but seven days. He told doctors of a mission during which his captain stepped on a landmine and was blown to bits.
An April 1991 self-assessment, in his handwriting, describes a toxic stew: “Depression, anxiety, acute isolation in the woods or mountains, absolutely no relationships (except parents who hang on), tension, inability to relax, confusion, lack of attention and concentration, hyper vigilance, suicidal/homicidal thoughts, anger control, explosive behavior” and on and on.
In an interview with doctors at the time, he said, “Yes sir, I was in Vietnam. I was a first lieutenant. I did my best to take care of my men, to see that they weren’t hurt in any way.”
The doctor noted, “We are dealing with a strange sort of veteran. He is exceedingly disorganized, confused and has marked difficulty entering into a give and take coherent conversation.”
He was then accorded 100 percent disability due to PTSD.
By 1998, he was living in a multi-story plywood structure with no water or power that he built in a wooded area near Dublin, Ga. He was headed there after visiting his mother near Atlanta when he was caught speeding.
All of this will be weighed by parole board members who must make one of society’s gravest decisions.
Some people need killing for doing horrible things. The question is, does Andrew Brannan?
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