Authorities in Elizabeth City, North Carolina on Monday finally showed the family of Andrew Brown, Jr. a portion of the police body-cam videos from the shooting last Wednesday that cost Brown his life.
Attorney Chantel Lassiter says the body camera video shows #AndrewBrown was in his car with his hands on the steering wheel when officers started shooting at him and his car before he drove away. She says “this was clearly an execution” @13NewsNow pic.twitter.com/rFzUYRL7Xu
— Evan Watson (@EvanWatsonNews) April 26, 2021
Lawyers representing the family say they were only allowed to see a short 20-second clip that is nowhere near enough to qualify as the transparency local police officials have promised. The family and their attorneys were clearly frustrated and upset when they spoke at a press conference after viewing the video, according to USA Today (watch above). Attorney Ben Crump said:
“Andrew Brown’s family deserves transparency! North Carolina police officers have delayed the viewing of bodycam footage & tried to assassinate Andrew Brown’s character in effort to protect their officers! They believe we are NOT worthy of consideration, respect, or humanity!”
"It should not end in a homicide… Twenty seconds… we're not fools. We know it's a lot more to this than what that family saw… I'm just sick of it."
– Fmr. acting Baltimore police commissioner Anthony Barksdale reacts to the fatal police shooting of Andrew Brown Jr. pic.twitter.com/pRtq50QlbG
— CNN News Central (@NewsCentralCNN) April 26, 2021
Brown was shot and killed while deputies were in the process of executing a search warrant. Witnesses say Brown was shot while attempting to drive away. There remain many unanswered questions about the incident, including how many times Brown was shot. CNN reports that on audio from police dispatch audio recorded that day, first responders can be heard saying a man had gunshot wounds to the back.
It happened a day after a Minneapolis jury found former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of George Floyd’s murder. Seven Pasquotank County deputies are now on paid administrative leave after the shooting, and three others resigned. A lawyer for Brown’s family said no drugs or weapons were found in his car or in the house.
At a press conference earlier Monday in Elizabeth City, Bakari Sellers, a CNN commentator and a civil rights attorney, read the phone numbers of Senators Joe Manchin and Krystin Sinema and told people to call them and tell them to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Sellers, who along with Ben Crump and Harry Daniels is representing the Brown family, views the legislation as a key step to police reform in the U.S.
I very much enjoyed @Bakari_Sellers live on two networks giving out Sens. Manchin and Sinema’s office numbers.
“Call their office and tell them we’re tired of Black folk dying.” pic.twitter.com/Jn9N7gqP5j
— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) April 26, 2021
CNN also reported Monday it had acquired a copy of the death certificate, and it showed Brown died as a result of a “penetrating gunshot wound of the head” and died within “minutes” of being shot. The certificate categorizes his death as a homicide.
The county sheriff and even the governor of North Carolina joined the growing calls to release the video of the incident. “We want the body cam footage to be made public,” said Sheriff Tommy Wooten. Except so far, that promised transparency hasn’t happened. The short clip the Brown family viewed was clearly not enough to begin to answer the many questions that demand answers surrounding the shooting, the latest in a series of incidents involving black men who were killed by police in the U.S.
The fact that Elizabeth City, NC has declared a State of Emergency in advance of releasing the body cam footage of Andrew Brown Jr.'s death at the hands of police, probably tells you everything you need to know about what the footage reveals 💔
— Jake Lobin (@JakeLobin) April 26, 2021