UPDATE: 7 deputies on leave, 3 resign after fatal shooting in NC

Deputies were at Brown’s residence to serve felony drug arrest warrants and other search warrants at the time he was fatally shot, according to reports.

A statement from Wooten and Chief Deputy Daniel Fogg suggested deputies at the scene feared Brown was a dangerous suspect due to his criminal history, according to Marks.

More than two days after a North Carolina sheriff’s deputy shot and killed the unarmed Black man, authorities who promised transparency in the case still have not released police body camera footage of the incident despite growing demands from the community to know exactly what happened.

The district attorney has said that releasing the video would require a court order.

Wooten meanwhile provided only scant details of the shooting in which Brown was mortally wounded as officers executed a search warrant about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday at a residence in Elizabeth City, just west of the Outer Banks.

What happened

So far, witnesses are the only ones to provide any account of what happened.

Demetria Williams, who lives on Perry Street where the shooting happened, said Brown began driving away when one of the deputies fired into his car multiple times. At least six to eight shots were heard before Brown’s vehicle skidded out and eventually hit a tree.

“When they opened the door, he was already dead,” Williams told The Associated Press. “He was slumped over.” She said officers tried to perform chest compressions, but it was too late.

A car authorities removed from the scene was marked with multiple bullet holes, and the rear window was blasted out.

Credit: TNS

Credit: TNS

The deputy who opened fire was wearing an active body camera at the time of the shooting, said Wooten, who would not identify the officer and how many shots he fired.

No deputies were injured, and the deputy was placed on administrative leave pending a review by the State Bureau of Investigation, Wooten said.

Family members said Brown, a 42-year-old father of 10 children, had no weapons and was unarmed at the time.

Wooten would not confirm the family or eyewitness version of events.

The State Bureau of Investigation will turn the findings of its review over to District Attorney Andrew Womble, who pledged a thorough and deliberate inquiry.

“What we are looking for at this time will be accurate answers and not fast answers,” Womble told a news conference. “We’re going to wait for the full and complete investigation ... and we’ll review that and make any determinations that we deem appropriate at that time. This will not be a rush to judgment.”

A community reacts

Members of the community are specifically demanding law enforcement release the body cam footage.

Dozens were gathered at the scene of the shooting Wednesday, and later that night an angry crowd protested outside City Hall where the City Council held an emergency meeting on the matter. Some community members were holding signs proclaiming “Black Lives Matter” and “Stop killing unarmed Black Men.”

The crowd later moved to the parking lot of the sheriff’s office where more than 200 people blocked traffic on a main thoroughfare of the city, forcing cars to turn around.

During the emergency meeting, Black members of the City Council spoke emotionally about the fears of their community amid multiple police shootings across the country and implored investigators to remain transparent.

“I’m afraid as a Black man,” an emotional Councilman Gabriel Adkins told his colleagues. “I’m afraid that I may be the next one that my family might have to see on the news that I was gunned down.”

Adkins said businesses in the neighborhood of the shooting had begun boarding up their windows in anticipation of violence.

“Not only do we need transparency ... we need accountability,” said City Councilman Darius Horton, who called for the immediate release of body cam footage, the search warrant and a speedy explanation of what led to the shooting. “We need answers. ... Let’s not hide behind anything.”

What’s next

Protesters vowed to return to the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Office at 5 p.m. Thursday if video from the shooting hadn’t been released by then.

“If the body cameras were on, that information needs to be disseminated as quickly as possible in order to make sure justice is served,” Keith Rivers, president of the Pasquotank County chapter of the NAACP, told WAVY News 10.

About the victim

Court records show Brown had a history of drug charges and a conviction for misdemeanor drug possession, according to the AP.

Devastated family members said Brown may have had his troubles but was still a good man.

“The police didn’t have to shoot my baby,” said Martha McCullen, an aunt of Brown who said she raised him after his parents died. “Andrew Brown was a good person,” she said. “He was about to get his kids back. He was a good father. Now his kids won’t never see him again.”

Williams, the eyewitness who also was among those demonstrating outside City Hall on Wednesday evening, said Brown, who was known by neighbors as “Drew,” wasn’t a violent person.

“I didn’t believe that (officers) really did that because he wasn’t a threat to them. He was driving off even though he was trying to get away,” Williams said.

Sense of humor despite troubles

Relatives said Brown had an easy smile that belied his hardships in life and troubles with the law.

He was quick to crack a joke at the family gatherings he tried not to miss after losing both of his parents. He encouraged his children to make good grades even though he dropped out of high school himself. Above all, he was determined to give them a better life than he had.

Despite his hard life “Drew,” as he was called, looked for the humor in things.

Brown was partially paralyzed on his right side by an accidental shooting, and he lost an eye when he was stabbed, according to aunt Glenda Brown Thomas.

“He had a good laugh, a nice smile. And he had good dimples,” Thomas said in an interview Thursday, a day after her nephew was killed. “You know, when he’s talking and smiling, his dimples would always show. And he was kind of like a comedian. He always had a nice joke.”

His cousin Jadine Hampton said Brown often entertained relatives with his humorous stories at family gatherings, including a socially distanced celebration in October of their grandmother’s 92nd birthday, the last time Hampton saw Brown. Photos that Thomas shared with an AP reporter show him smiling at a church ceremony held to honor his grandmother as woman of the year.

“Great heart,” said Hampton, 51, who lives in Atlanta. “Everybody would just wait to hear him tell a story because it would be like a comedian telling the play-by-play about something that happened.”

When he was 12 or 13, his mother was slain in Florida, Thomas said. Not long afterward, he dropped out of school around the 10th grade. She said her nephew was a good basketball player but had trouble with reading comprehension. Several years ago, his father died in federal prison after a medical procedure, Thomas said.

A cycle of police shootings

The shooting happened as police departments across the country are facing increased scrutiny from the public following a series of recent high-profile police killings and custody deaths of unarmed Black men and women.

The incident in Elizabeth City came one day after police in Columbus, Ohio, shot and killed Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old Black girl who was involved in an altercation with two girls and was apparently using a knife to defend herself.

Another recent police shooting of an unarmed Black man occurred April 11 outside Minneapolis when 20-year-old Daunte Wright was killed during a traffic stop in which Brooklyn Center Police Officer Kim Potter said she mistakenly fired her gun instead of a Taser.

Both episodes occurred during the trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, who was found guilty Tuesday on three counts of killing George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes last year.

“When is it going to stop?” Rivers asked. “Is it open season now? At some point, it has to stop. We have to start holding the people in charge accountable.”

Information provided by The Associated Press was used to supplement this report.