Footage Shows Andrew Brown Was 'Ambushed' by Deputies Firing Repeatedly, Lawyer Says

By Josh Shaffer, The News and Observer

13 May 21

 

ndrew Brown Jr. was “ambushed” in his Elizabeth City driveway with his hands on the wheel of his car, dying in a hail of bullets without threatening the sheriff’s deputies who fired them, his attorney said Tuesday after viewing additional body camera footage.

Attorney Chance Lynch watched 20 minutes of footage — from five body cameras and a dashboard camera — with Brown family members. He disputed the district attorney’s prior account of Brown striking deputies with his vehicle. Instead, Brown backed up and turned away from them as deputies “opened up,” Lynch said.

“There were so many shots that we had difficulty in counting the number,” Lynch said.

Brown’s family and lawyers arrived at the Pasquotank County sheriff’s office Tuesday to view the longer but still heavily redacted video of his death. Until Tuesday, family members had only seen about 20 seconds of body camera footage.

The footage from body cameras included audio, and Lynch said deputies were yelling so loud Brown could not have understood them.

“You could see both hands,” Lynch said of Brown. “We could clearly see both hands.”

‘What’s in the dark is going to come to the light’

Lynch emphasized that Brown’s car did not move until the first shot was fired.

Attorney Bakari Sellers said he has asked that District Attorney Andrew Womble recuse himself, but his requests have gone unanswered. He said Womble has an “incestuous” relationship with sheriff’s deputies, working with them every day with his office inside theirs.

In calling for more video footage to be released, Lynch, a former assistant district attorney said he has never seen a situation in which a potential defendant gets to choose what evidence is shown.

Shouts and chants of “Say his name” came during the emotional 30-minute press conference. Some attending cried hearing the news.

Brown’s son, Khalil Ferebee, said he learned only a few more details Tuesday than he saw in the 20-second clip that some family members saw last month.

“He did nothing wrong at all,” Ferebee said. “What’s in the dark is going to come to the light.”

‘What are they hiding?’

Lynch said he believes the deputies’ footage shows their criminal liability.

None of the officers were standing near the car when it backed up, he said, and one of them appeared to reach out to it.

At the second shot, he said, Brown accelerated and lost control of the car when it crossed the yard.

Lynch and Brown’s sons who watched Tuesday said they counted six bullet holes in the passenger side of the vehicle and at least six in the back.

“At no point did we see Mr. Brown pose a threat to the law enforcement officers that were there,” Lynch said.

Asked about Womble’s description of Brown “making contact” with deputies with the car, Sellers called it inaccurate.

“What I have trouble explaining today is why you have killers in Pasquotank County that’s not in jail today,” attorney Harry Daniels said.

The Rev. William Barber II, speaking outside the sheriff’s office on Tuesday, said the family should be able to see unredacted footage.

“This is cruel and unusual punishment,” Barber said. “What are they hiding? What do they have to hide? To kill a young man, driving away, with a back shot and then to hide the tape.”

Protesters vow to be peaceful but loud

After the attorneys spoke, about 50 protesters marched down busy Ehringhaus Street in Elizabeth City, their route almost nightly since Brown’s death. They vowed to remain peaceful but loud.

Children passing in their parents’ car poked their heads through the sun roof and joined the chant, “Take that badge off!”

Brown, 42, died of a gunshot wound to the head on April 21 as deputies arrived at his home to serve search and arrest warrants based on a yearlong drug investigation.

Neighbors reported seeing deputies open fire on Brown’s car as he fled, shooting out the back window, and a family commissioned autopsy found a “kill shot” to the back of his head, according to attorney Ben Crump.

The family has since sought access to all deputies’ body-cam footage and dashboard camera video.

A Superior Court judge denied media requests for the release, and the Pasquotank sheriff’s office also sought permission to show video publicly. State law permits this only with a judge’s ruling, which the county commissioners have sought to change.

Some bipartisan support for wider access rules is also rising in the General Assembly.

Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten placed seven officers on administrative leave after Brown was shot and killed.

The incident happened less than 24 hours after Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, was convicted of the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man.