Two deputies paralyzed a homeless man in 2019. Now, a sheriff’s oversight board isn’t yet closing its case. – San Diego Union-Tribune

The civilian board that oversees the San Diego Sheriff’s Office has deferred a decision on whether to close the case of a homeless man who died after being paralyzed by deputies investigating an illegally parked van.

The Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board, or CLERB, put off adopting the staff recommendation to close the case after a parade of speakers urged it members to do more to investigate the 2023 death of Randal Tanner, findings posted online show.

Instead, after hearing from Tanner’s brother and a host of other critics at the public hearing, the board returned the case to investigators for further review. It was not immediately clear when a new recommendation might come forward.

Tanner died in 2023, four years after two sheriff’s deputies forced him to the ground and broke his spine while they were making arrangements to impound the broken-down van he was living in over its expired registration.

CLERB originally reviewed the case in the months after the 2019 encounter that left Tanner paralyzed. The board at that time ruled there was no use of excessive force by deputies.

But Tanner died years later as a result of his injuries — a death the Medical Examiner’s Office ruled a homicide. The review board reopened the case in 2024 but last week recommended closing it, citing a lack of new evidence.

Despite its age, the case was unreported until last week, when The San Diego Union-Tribune reported details of the 2019 encounter, Tanner’s death and CLERB’s plan to close the case.

When the review board convened, numerous speakers urged the civilian oversight board to look more closely at the case.

“I was deeply struck by the thoughtful comments of these strangers and it made me hopeful that perhaps this time the system will finally do a proper investigation,” Richard Tanner, Randal’s older brother, told the Union-Tribune.

“Maybe I will finally be able to get all the information I am legally allowed to have about the last years of his life after these deputies spotted that his car registration was expired, which is what started all of this,” he said.

CLERB’s executive officer Brett Kalina did not respond to requests for comment this week on the board’s decision to revisit his recommendation to close the case.

Last week he said there was not enough new information to reconsider the deputies’ actions.

“Although CLERB opened the case out of an abundance of caution, it was determined there was no new evidence regarding the original complaint of excessive force,” Kalina said last week.

“Nor did the M.E.’s report produce any new evidence of the use of force, and therefore CLERB cannot revisit the original findings,” he added. “Without new and substantial evidence of the use of force, CLERB does not have jurisdiction.”

Tanner disagreed with that conclusion.

He said the sheriff’s video made clear that deputies wrongly slammed his brother to the ground and then ignored his cries that he could not move.

Evidence also shows deputies wrongly pushing and jostling Tanner even though he had serious injuries, he said.

“I do think the way deputies moved my brother around after the take-down, after he was cuffed and after he was saying he needed a doctor and could not move, are crucial facts that nobody seemed to have noticed,” Tanner said.

“I also think there must be a fair amount of video/audio evidence which was not put into the publicly released video,” he added. “I want to see the whole video from each of the cameras at the scene.”

Richard Tanner was not the only person to say the review board should revisit the Tanner case in the wake of the medical examiner’s homicide ruling.

Former CLERB executive officer Paul Parker criticized the recommendation last week, saying the medical examiner’s report alone was enough new evidence to recommend the oversight board revisit its earlier findings.

The review board voted 7-1 to defer any decision on Kalina’s recommendation to close the Tanner case. It was not clear which volunteer CLERB members voted for and against the delay, because neither the video nor minutes from the meeting have been posted.