Police Brutality / Individual record
Charles Bertram
The Washington Post's Fatal Force database records Charles Bertram in a fatal on-duty police shooting on 2015-08-06 in El Paso, TX. Individual circumstances and legal outcome require case-specific review.
- Record ID
- PB-230
- Incident date
- August 6, 2015
- Outcome
- Fatal
- Location
- El Paso, TX
- Agency
- El Paso Police Department
- Category
- Fatal on-duty police shooting
- Age (reported)
- 22
What happened
Charles Bertram, 22, was shot and killed by El Paso police following an August 6, 2015, stop of a car with a broken headlight near Dyer Street. Bertram was a passenger. Local reports said he left the car and reached back toward the rear seat while an officer suspected he was holding a gun. Shots were fired and Bertram died nearby. His mother spoke publicly about the killing and surrounding violence in the neighborhood, while legal advocates later highlighted the traffic-stop origin of the encounter. What the officer actually saw, and whether Bertram posed an immediate deadly threat, must not be assumed resolved by the initial police description. A later officer conviction was not confirmed.
Investigation & findings
Individual legal and investigative outcome not yet reviewed.
Washington Post Fatal Force v2; 2015–2024
Source record details
- Source incident ID
- 737
- Race code in source
- B
- Race source method
- not_available
- Gender (source)
- male
- Armed status (source)
- gun
- Flee status (source)
- car
- Agency IDs (source)
- 110
Sources & records
- Primary source
- Additional source
- Methodology and national police killings trackingMapping Police Violence · Dataset/methodology
- Fatal Force v2 — fatal on-duty police shootings, 2015–2024The Washington Post · Dataset