Chief Brian Irons: the Corrupt Police Chief of Resident Evil 2

Brian Irons is the chief of police in Raccoon City and the most openly human villain in Resident Evil 2. He took Umbrella's money to keep his officers away from its laboratories, shut down the S.T.A.R.S. investigation after the Spencer Mansion, and when the outbreak reached the city he made sure his own police force died with him. He met his end at the hands of William Birkin. (Resident Evil 2 (1998); Resident Evil 2 (2019))

Who is Chief Irons?#

Irons is the man at the top of the R.P.D. in 1998, and Umbrella's man inside it. Files in the 1998 game show him taking regular cash payments from Annette Birkin, and a fax to him from Umbrella spells out what the money was for: keeping the police away from the company's business under the city. He spent some of it on the art and statues that fill the station, which was once a museum. (Resident Evil 2 (1998))

His record was bad long before Umbrella. An internal investigation report faxed to Chris Redfield's office in the 1998 game says Irons took Umbrella bribes for years and helped cover up the mansion lab, and that he was accused of assaulting female students at university but never charged. His secretary's diary, found in a back room of his office, ends the day after she discovers what he has been hiding. (Resident Evil 2 (1998))

The 2019 remake keeps the bribes and fills in his public face. A magazine feature in the station praises him for charity work, and files put him in charge of the Raccoon City Orphanage, which Umbrella was using to hide its testing on children. His office is full of animals he shot and stuffed himself. (Resident Evil 2 (2019))

Burying the Mansion Incident#

When S.T.A.R.S. came back from the Spencer Mansion in July 1998 with stories of monsters and illegal research, Irons made sure nothing came of it. He closed the case and suspended the unit, and its members were treated as cranks. Jill Valentine's diary in Resident Evil 3 describes how nobody in authority would listen. Chris Redfield left for Europe, and Jill stayed behind in a city that was about to fall. (Resident Evil 2 (1998); Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)

The 2020 remake of Resident Evil 3 adds a little more: an invitation to a private event shows Irons rubbing shoulders with Umbrella's people and the city's powerful, part of the picture-perfect image he kept up while taking their money. (Resident Evil 3 (2020))

The outbreak and Irons' breakdown#

The Chief's diary in the 1998 game charts his collapse. When he learned the t-Virus had got into the city, he decided he was infected too and that nobody in the station would leave alive. He ordered the weapons locker emptied and the guns spread around the building, which left officers short when the dead broke in, and he wrote about hunting survivors himself. The operation reports left around the station show the force being wiped out in the days that followed. (Resident Evil 2 (1998))

Claire Redfield found him in his office standing over the body of the mayor's daughter, whom he had shot. He claimed she was about to turn. Then he held a gun on Claire and admitted Umbrella had paid him to keep quiet about William Birkin's G-Virus. Behind his office was a hidden room he used to prepare bodies like the animal trophies on his walls. (Resident Evil 2 (1998))

How does Chief Irons die?#

In the 1998 game Irons runs from Claire into the passages under the station. William Birkin, who had injected himself with the G-Virus and was hunting the area, catches him there and plants an embryo in him. Claire finds Irons as it bursts out of his chest. It happens in Claire's story; Leon sees a different victim, the reporter Ben Bertolucci, die the same way in the cells. (Resident Evil 2 (1998))

How the 2019 remake changes Irons#

The remake turns him from a crooked chief into an outright predator. He finds Claire and Sherry Birkin in the station's parking garage, recognises Sherry as Birkin's daughter and knows her pendant is the key to the G-Virus. He takes Sherry to the orphanage and forces Claire to fetch the pendant, planning to trade it for his own escape. (Resident Evil 2 (2019))

Sherry is briefly playable there, hiding from him in the orphanage, and throws chemicals in his face to get away. Birkin finds Irons while he chases her and implants him, and when Claire arrives the embryo bursts out of him in front of her. Ben Bertolucci, by contrast, now dies in the cells to Mr. X rather than an embryo. (Resident Evil 2 (2019))

Chief Irons in Welcome to Raccoon City#

Donal Logue plays Irons in the 2021 film. He's still Umbrella's man and still a coward, but the film drops the serial killer. He sends the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team to the mansion, tries to drive out of town and finds Umbrella's guards blocking the road, then heads for the old orphanage with Leon and Claire to find a tunnel to the lab. A Licker kills him there before Lisa Trevor saves the others. See Welcome to Raccoon City explained. (Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City)