A North Carolina prosecutor said Andrew Brown Jr. hit law enforcement officers with his car before they opened fire, while a judge ordered a 10-day delay for the release of body camera footage in his fatal shooting on April 21.
District Attorney Andrew Womble told a judge at a hearing Wednesday he disagreed with a characterization by attorneys for the family of Brown that his vehicle was stationary when the shooting started, citing body camera footage he saw.
The video showed Brown’s car made contact with law enforcement twice before gunfire was heard on the video, Womble claimed, according to WSOC-TV.
Pasquotank County Judge Jeffrey Foster granted Womble’s request for a 30 to 45-day delay in releasing the footage while the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation continues its investigation, according to the Washington Post.
ANDREW BROWN’S FAMILY SHOWN 20 SECONDS OF BODY CAMERA FOOTAGE, ATTORNEY CLAIMS IT WAS ‘EXECUTION’
The decision, which Foster said was made because releasing the footage “would create a serious threat to the fair, impartial and orderly administration of justice,” was announced Wednesday.
While the public won’t see the footage for at least 30 days, an edited version will be made available for Brown’s family to watch within 10 days. His family has already viewed 20 seconds of police body camera footage.
Once the waiting period is over, the judge will give the family a copy of the video, which they could share publicly.
“We are deeply disappointed by the judge’s decision to not make body camera footage from the involved officers available to be viewed by the public,” the family’s attorneys said in a statement Wednesday after the judge’s ruling. “In this modern civil rights crisis where we see Black people killed by the police everywhere we look, video evidence is the key to discerning the truth and getting well-deserved justice for victims of senseless murders.”
“Just look at the murder of George Floyd – if the world had not seen that clear and disturbing footage, there might not have even been an ounce of accountability for those officers,” the statement from civil rights attorney Ben Crump and co-counsels Bakari Sellers, Harry Daniels, and Chantel Cherry-Lassiter continued. “We refuse to be discouraged and vow to keep the pressure on these agencies until we get to the truth. We will not stop saying his name. Andrew Brown Jr.”
The FBI Charlotte Field Office opened a civil rights investigation into the death of Brown, and his family released an independent autopsy showing he was shot five times, including once in the back of the head.
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Cherry-Lassiter alleged the shooting was an “execution” on Tuesday.
