On April 21, Andrew Brown Jr. was sitting outside of his home in Elizabeth City, North Carolina when he noticed members of a regional drug task force in the vicinity. Attempting to serve him a search warrant, officers approached Brown Jr.'s car. However, Brown Jr. was able to drive away from the officers before the warrant was served. In response, the officers fired multiple shots that would ultimately kill the North Carolina resident. Three weeks after the father of seven was killed by police, members of his family were able to see portions of the body-camera footage that was recorded on the day he was killed.
Members of the Brown family were able to see approximately 20 minutes of the body camera footage from the April 21 shooting. While it is far less than the two hours worth of footage that was recorded that day, it did provide the family a deeper look into exactly what took place that day. According to attorney Chance Lynch, Brown Jr. was driving away from the officers and posed little to no threat to those around him when he was killed. He also noted that Brown Jr. seemingly had no weapon at the time he was killed. As a result, he characterized the shooting as both "unconstitutional and "not justifiable."
"There were so many shots that we found difficulty in counting the number of shots that his vehicle received. At some point, there was a final shot [and] that it appeared Mr. Brown had lost control," Lynch said.
"There was a shot fired. When the shot was fired, he put the car in reverse, putting it several feet, if not yards, away from the police that were there. He turned his wheel to the left, away from law enforcement. At no point did we ever see any police behind his vehicle. At no point did we ever see Mr. Brown make contact with law enforcement."
Shortly after Lynch and members of the Brown family spoke, Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten issued a pre-recorded statement through his Facebook page.
"We continue to express our condolences to the Brown family and let our deputies know that we love and support them, as this was a day that no one wanted."
Judge Jeffrey Foster has remained steadfast in his decision not to release the video to the public. However, he said that he would reconsider his ruling after 30 days. At this time, it is also unclear if the Brown family will have an opportunity to view the entirety of the body camera footage that was recorded on April 21.
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