Prosecutor: No Charges in Andrew Brown Jr Shooting By Deputies

Andrew Brown Protest in Graham, NC (2021 Apr 27)Photo by Anthony Crider, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

After weeks of waiting and a State Bureau of Investigation, but no public release of the bodycam and other footage, no charges will be filed in the shooting of Andrew Brown, Jr.

The AP:

A North Carolina prosecutor said Tuesday that sheriff’s deputies were justified in fatally shooting Andrew Brown Jr. because he struck a deputy with his car and nearly ran him over while ignoring commands to show his hands and get out of the vehicle.

District Attorney Andrew Womble said at a news conference that Brown used his car as a “deadly weapon,” causing Pasquotank County deputies to believe it was necessary to use deadly force.

Womble, who acknowledged Brown wasn’t armed with guns or other weapons, said the deputies will face no criminal charges after he reviewed a state investigation of the shooting, which sparked weeks of protests. Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten II said in a video statement Tuesday afternoon that the deputies will keep their jobs but will be “disciplined and retrained.”

Brown’s family released a statement calling Womble’s decision “both an insult and a slap in the face.” Attorneys for the family who watched body camera footage have said repeatedly that he was trying to drive away from deputies serving drug-related warrants and posed no threat.

The prosecutor declined to directly release copies of bodycam video of the April 21 shooting, but he played portions of the video during the news conference that media outlets broadcast live.

The multiple angles of the footage, projected onto a screen behind Womble, depicted a chaotic scene of about 44 seconds. After six deputies approach Brown’s car with guns drawn, the video shows one of them putting his hand on the driver’s side door, then yelling and recoiling as Brown backs up.

Seconds later, the same deputy appears to be in the path of the car as Brown moves forward, though it’s not clear how fast the car is moving. The deputy appears to avoid a direct hit after pushing his hand onto the moving car’s hood and quickly moving aside. Gunshots are then heard, and officers appear to continue firing as the car moves away from them.

The quality of the projected video, even replayed later on news websites that filmed it, made it hard for a viewer to glean the level of detail described by either the Brown family or prosecutor when they watched the footage in person. The family continued its calls Tuesday for direct release of the video, which would make longer and higher-quality versions public.

During his news conference, Womble said the deputy who tried to open Brown’s car door was jerked over the hood when the car backed up, and the deputy’s body was struck by the vehicle. The deputy then had to push off the hood with his hand “to avoid being run over” when Brown drove forward, Womble said. He said that was the moment when the first shot was fired by a fellow deputy.

“I find that the facts of this case clearly illustrate the officers who used deadly force on Andrew Brown Jr. did so reasonably and only when a violent felon used a deadly weapon to put their lives in danger,” Womble said, referring to Brown’s car. He added that “Brown posed an immediate threat to the safety of the officers and others.”

“Federal courts have held that the Constitution simply does not require police to gamble with their lives in the face of a serious threat of harm,” he said.

Though Womble said at least two deputies were endangered by Brown’s driving, the sheriff has said his deputies weren’t injured.

In a statement released a couple of hours after the news conference, attorneys for Brown’s families decried Womble’s conclusion.

“To say this shooting was justified, despite the known facts, is both an insult and a slap in the face to Andrew’s family, the Elizabeth City community, and to rational people everywhere,” the statement said. “Not only was the car moving away from officers, but four of them did not fire their weapons — clearly they did not feel that their lives were endangered. And the bottom line is that Andrew was killed by a shot to the back of the head.”

Many of the two dozen people who gathered outside the municipal building where Womble held his news conference said they were disappointed by his decision. Some said they would hold a protest march in Elizabeth City on Tuesday evening.

The issue here, aside from the facts of the case, is the withholding of the footage of the shooting of Andrew Brown Jr. North Carolina has one of the strictest laws in the country related to the public release of police video, and Judge Jeffrey Foster ruled the four bodycams and one dash cams video “would create a serious threat to the fair, impartial and orderly administration of justice” despite the sheriff involved openly calling for it to be released, and the SBI publicly saying it wouldn’t affect the investigation.

Protest groups vow to resume their marches. For his part, DA Wobble says the full footage will remain unreleased, which drew renewed protests:

A North Carolina prosecutor said he won’t release bodycam video in the fatal shooting of Andrew Brown, Jr. by sheriff’s deputies.

District Attorney Andrew Womble made the announcement at a news conference Tuesday.

Body camera video played on a projector by Womble was broadcast by multiple news outlets, however.

Womble also said at the news conference that no charges would be filed against any of the deputies and that their actions were justified because Brown ignored their commands and drove his car directly at one of them before they fired any shots.

Womble said the morning of the warrant, Brown was in a car outside of the residence and six deputies attempted to open the door while shouting commands. Womble said commands were not listened to, and the car was put into drive toward law enforcement officers. He noted as the car moved directly toward one of the deputies, the first shot was fired into the front windshield and a deputy spun out of the way to avoid being run over. Womble added that several shots continued, entering the vehicle from the side and rear windows as the vehicle headed toward a sergeant.

Reporters and others who asked questions during the press conference asked multiple times why the video seemed to show the car turning away from the officers, which was different from how Womble explained the situation.

The district attorney did not answer these questions and said he hopes people look at the facts and know that people will see what they want and hope to see, and until you break things down frame-by-frame, some things are hard to see.

“There were falsehoods made and you can draw whatever inference you want,” Womble said.