Why was car dealership attack suspect on street? Fresno DA calls it failure of system

If the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office had its way, Manuel Bracker would have received jail time last year.

But DA Lisa Smittcamp said instead a mental health diversion left him on the streets, where he allegedly assaulted a man at a Fresno business last month.

“We objected,” Smittcamp told The Fresno Bee in an interview Wednesday.

“He was accepted. What happened after that was the travesty of justice.”

The 36-year-old Bracker was arrested Oct. 26, after he allegedly stabbed an employee at Lithia Ford Dealership multiple times in what police say was a random attack. The victim was hospitalized, but survived.

The district attorney’s office has charged Bracker with attempted murder, with enhancements. He is expected to be in back in court in early January.

The case, Smittcamp said, “is a perfect example of how the system fails. Everybody.”

Bracker is an unhoused veteran who saw “significant combat” during his service, according to the DA. He has a history of mental illness, and had already been referred to behavioral health court in 2019 after he was arrested for repeatedly stabbing a 63-year-old woman at a grocery store.

That incident three years ago was strikingly similar to last month’s.

Bracker was ultimately sentenced to two years at Wasco State Prison for the 2019 crime, but only after he failed to comply with the orders from the behavioral health court, according to the DA. He was still in custody until at least Sept. 15, 2021, according to records.

It is not clear whether Bracker served the full sentence, but Smittcamp said that’s unlikely. He was not out on parole.

“When he came out of prison, he picked up another case with similar circumstances,” Smittcamp said.

There were two cases, in fact. In December 2021 there was an attempted assault at a Fresno hotel and a burglary at a credit union in downtown. Bracker was arrested and charged in both cases, but was eligible for pretrial mental health diversion.

That is because of Assembly Bill 1810.

Signed in 2018 by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, the bill allows defendants who meet specific criteria to postpone prosecution to undergo inpatient or outpatient mental health treatment.

While the DA’s office understands the benefits of keeping people, especially those with mental illness, out of the prison system, the AB1810 process allows for little oversight or accountability, Smittcamp said. The burden is on the public defenders and private attorneys to be sure their clients are complying with those court orders.

That leaves some people, Bracker for example, “flapping in the wind,” Smittcamp said.

“He’s left to his own devices. To fix himself. And that doesn’t happen.”

When the public sees this case — with literal random acts of violence that seem avoidable — it wants to blame the DA’s office or public defender or some incompetent judge, Smittcamp said. But it is a failure of the entire system, she said, driven, in part, by a state Legislature that wants to see “everyone out of jail.”

“In the wake of this system failure, you have all of these victims,” she said.

“The community continues to be victimized and the people who need help aren’t getting the help they need.”