According to the new evidence being shown by the North Carolina prosecutor, Andrew Brown struck police officers with his car before he was shot and killed according to new evidence being shown by the prosecution.
Andrew Brown is a well-known drug dealer with an extensive criminal record – yet his family is claiming to have been executed in cold blood by seven police officers in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
The officers involved have already been suspended from active duty while the investigation is ongoing. After Black Lives Matter activists have rallied behind Brown and his family and are calling for the officers involved to be criminally charged.
Lawyers for the Brown family claim that Brown could not have posed a threat due to the fact that both of his hands were on the steering wheel of his vehicle.
The new evidence shows that Brown, who was seated in his car in the driveway of his house when officers arrived to execute a search warrant as part of a narcotics investigation, did pose a deadly threat to the officers.
Footage of the incident viewed by the District Attorney and family lawyers has not yet been released to the public.
Excerpt from WSOC-TV reports:
ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — A North Carolina prosecutor says that a Black man killed by deputies hit law enforcement officers with his car before they opened fire.
District Attorney Andrew Womble told a judge at a hearing Wednesday that he viewed body camera video and disagreed with a characterization by attorneys for the family of Andrew Brown Jr. that his car was stationary when the shooting started.
Womble said the video shows that Brown’s car made contact with law enforcement twice before shots could be heard on the video.
“As it backs up, it does make contact with law enforcement officers,” he said, adding that the car stops again. “The next movement of the car is forward. It is in the direction of law enforcement and makes contact with law enforcement. It is then and only then that you hear shots.”The FBI Charlotte Field Office has launched a civil rights probe into the death of Brown, as his family released an independent autopsy showing he was shot five times, including in the back of the head.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper called for a special prosecutor while pressure built on authorities to release body camera footage of last week’s shooting. A judge scheduled a hearing Wednesday to consider formal requests to make the video public.
Several people were arrested Tuesday night in Elizabeth City as protesters pushed back against Mayor Bettie Parker’s 8 p.m. curfew, ABC affiliate WVEC reported.
The curfew was added to the mayor’s state of emergency order in response to seven straight days of peaceful protests following Brown’s death.
At least five people were arrested Tuesday night.
Sources: NewsHourFirst, WSOC-TV
