An independent autopsy commissioned by the family of Andrew Brown Jr., the Black man fatally shot by sheriff’s deputies in North Carolina last week, shows he died from a gunshot wound to the back of the head that his lawyers described at a Tuesday morning press conference as a “kill shot,” saying he was “executed” by law enforcement.
KEY FACTS
Brown’s attorneys said a pathologist hired by the family found he was shot a total of five times by Pasquotank County Sheriff’s deputies while they were serving drug-related search and arrest warrants last Wednesday.
The independent autopsy found the shot that killed him, which attorney Wayne Kendall described as a “kill shot,” was fired at the back of his head as he “was leaving the site trying to evade being shot at by these particular law enforcement officers.”
The other four shots left wounds on his right arm, the report from North Carolina pathologist Dr. Brent Hall found, with two penetrating his skin and two grazing his arm.
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Brown’s family members were shown just 20 seconds of body camera footage from the fatal shooting on Monday after Pasquotank County Attorney Michael Cox said parts of the video had to be redacted “to protect an active internal investigation.”
Attorneys representing the family said that based on the footage Brown appeared to pose no threat to the deputies who were deployed to execute a search warrant after investigators recorded Brown selling a small amount of cocaine and methamphetamine to an informant.
“Andrew had his hands on his steering wheel … He was not reaching for anything, he was not touching anything,” family attorney Chanel Cherry-Lassiter said, counting eight different deputies in the video who she said Brown was not threatening “in any kind of fashion.”
At the Tuesday press conference, Brown’s son Khalil Ferebee emphasized that his father posed no threat and questioned why officers shot him multiple times.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
“Yesterday I said he was executed,” Ferebee said. “This autopsy report shows me that was correct.”
KEY BACKGROUND
Protesters have gathered in Elizabeth City, where Brown was shot, for six consecutive nights, as Brown’s family continues to demand more transparency about the circumstances of the shooting. Authorities have released very few details and have not made public the body camera footage from the deputies on the scene that day. The sheriff’s office has placed seven of the department’s 55 full-time deputies on paid administrative leave due to the shooting.
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