Brianna Kupfer's alleged killer Shawn Smith once bit a cop, police report says

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FIRST ON FOX: Brianna Kupfer's alleged killer Shawn Laval Smith allegedly chomped on a cop's hand and drew blood about one year before allegedly stabbing the 24-year-old UCLA graduate student to death in a random daylight attack in Los Angeles, Fox News Digital has learned.

After Smith, 31, allegedly vandalized a stranger's car in Daly City, California, on Jan. 20, 2021, officers arrested him and placed him in the back of a cruiser, where he grew agitated, according to records.

Brianna Kupfer and and her alleged killer's mugshots. ( )

"I tried to speak to him, but he was just yelling over my words and not listening," wrote officer Jay Mulitauopele in paperwork. "Then Smith started yelling ‘I’ll kill you! I'll kill you!'"

Smith bobbed back and forth and screamed while repeatedly kicking the cruiser's rear left door. Mulitauopele and two other officers pulled Smith from the cruiser to the ground and tried to place him in a WRAP restraint device.

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"He moved his head quickly and bit my right index finger latching on with full force," Mulitauopele wrote in the report. "I screamed in pain."

After removing his latex glove, the officer saw that his finger was bleeding and imprinted with Smith's teeth marks.  Smith hurled profanities at the officers as they attempted to subdue him.

Composite of Shawn Smith's mugshots.

Earlier, police had responded to a Nation's hamburger restaurant after Smith allegedly climbed on top of a staffer's car and violently jumped on the hood, leaving a huge dent and causing nearly $4,000 in damage, according to records.

At one point he tried to enter the fast-food franchise, but the door was blocked by a table, the victim, who did not know Smith, told responding officers.

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Police pursued the rampaging suspect to a nearby Starbucks where he was yelling at two strangers sitting outside on a bench. Smith allegedly snatched one of their cellphones, then tried to fight them as police arrived, the report says.

The suspected killer of 24-year-old UCLA grad student Brianna Kupfer appeared on surveillance video at a nearby 7-Eleven store buying a vape pen just 30 minutes after her murder. (LAPD)

The career criminal, who was living in a homeless shelter in San Francisco at the time, was hit with three felonies: assault on a police officer, resisting an executive officer and vandalism. Police also recovered from him an orange flare gun with bullets, a knife and a Nintendo Switch. 

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The South Carolina native was out on a $50,000 bond in Charleston for allegedly shooting a flare gun at a stranger's rear car window as a toddler sat in the backseat during a road rage incident in Nov. 2019.

Due to a COVID-19 backlog of cases, he has not had a single court date since his release -- but as a condition of his bond he was not allowed to leave South Carolina.

A makeshift memorial for Brianna Kupfer outside Croft House, the LA furniture store where she worked and was stabbed to death on Jan. 13. (Fox News Digital)

Smith ultimately pleaded guilty in San Mateo County Superior Court to resisting an executive officer after serving 133 days in jail for biting the cop's hand. He was released on probation on June 1, 2021, but failed to check in with his probation officer or provide an updated address. A bench warrant was issued for his arrest six months later, court records show.  

It's unclear why his California contacts with law enforcement didn't trigger Charleston's solicitor to revoke his $50,000 bond and jail him. Solicitor Scarlet Wilson didn't immediately return a request for comment. 

The 24-year-old was studying design as a grad student at UCLA. (Todd Kupfer)

"Typically the prosecutor's office in the sending state, in this case California, would notify the receiving state, in this case South Carolina, and the receiving state would tell them whether they intend to extradite," said former Assistant Manhattan prosecutor Daniel Bibb.

If South Carolina requested extradition, they would have 90 days to pick him up, Bibb said. It wasn't immediately clear if San Mateo County authorities notified the Charleston solicitor.

But a year after the assault on Mulitaupele, Smith allegedly entered Croft House, an upscale furniture store on North La Brea Avenue, and plunged a knife into Kupfer, who was working there as a design consultant.  

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Police said there is no known motive for the Jan. 13 attack. After a one-week manhunt, Smith was busted in Pasadena Wednesday for the alleged slaying of the student who had dreamed of launching her own clothing line one day.

Smith has a lengthy rap sheet including at least 11 arrests in Charleston stretching back to 2010, court records show.

Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.