Brian was so much more than the circumstances of his death or a mental health diagnosis. He was a son, a brother, an uncle, a friend, and someone who was deeply loved by his family.
I came into Brian’s life when he and his brother Mark were teenagers, and over the years he became simply my son. Brian and Mark weren’t just brothers; they were best friends. They spent a lot of time together, whether they were playing disc golf, hanging out, or just talking. Brian loved his family, and the people closest to him knew how much they meant to him.
And then there was Penny. Brian took her in as a puppy when she needed a home, and from that point on they were almost inseparable. He took her to the dog park regularly, where both Brian and Penny became well known.
He had a whole community of people there who knew him, talked with him, and cared about him. Penny went to the beach with him, to the disc golf course, and pretty much anywhere else Brian could take her. She was his companion and a huge part of his life.
Brian had struggled with mental illness for years, and our family never hid that. He had been doing well with treatment before a terrible work accident in 2023, when a driver entered a roadway construction zone and struck him while he was working. Brian suffered devastating injuries and spent months in the hospital. He nearly lost his leg and also suffered a head injury.
Afterward, his mental health became much more difficult for him to manage.
That was something Brian struggled with. It was not who Brian was.
We are still trying to process his death, and there are still things we don’t know. We have not yet received all of the records or reviewed all of the available body-camera footage, so I’m not ready to speak publicly about the circumstances surrounding his death.
Right now, what I want people to know is that there was a human being behind the headlines. His name was Brian. He had people who loved him, people he loved, a brother who was his best friend, and a dog who absolutely adored him.
We miss him terribly.
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This article appears in Oct. 08 – 14, 2026.