Family files $30M Suit Over NC Deputies' Execution of Andrew Brown. White Cops Were Not in Imminent Danger When They Shot Him 14X, Video Shows a Cop Move Into His Path as He Drove Away from Police

From [HERE] The family of Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man who was fatally shot by police in April, filed a civil rights lawsuit on Wednesday over his death. The family is seeking a judgement in excess of $30 million for "emotional distress, humiliation, loss of enjoyment of life, and other pain and suffering." 

"We believe that finally Andrew Brown can get justice because he did not get justice in life and, so far, he hasn't even gotten justice in death," attorney Bakari Sellers said Wednesday at a press conference. 

Brown, 42, was killed in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, after sheriff's deputies serving felony warrants and a search warrant surrounded his car. Partial video of the shooting released in May shows Brown attempting to drive away from the scene, by first backing up and then turning left to drive between officers. Deputies then opened fire, shooting a total of 14 times. Brown was hit several times, and the car crashed shortly afterwards. 

In June, a state autopsy report labeled his death a homicide, attributing it to a gunshot wound to the back of his head.  

Brown's family has consistently called for the full body camera footage of his death to be publicly released. The family was allowed to view 18 minutes of the footage in May, and said it showed Brown did not hit officers with his car before they started shooting.

In the lawsuit, Brown's family claims he did not pose a risk to officers when he tried to flee the scene, and that as a result, deputies from the Pasquotank County Sheriff's Office and the Dare County Sheriff's Office used "objectively unreasonable, excessive and conscious shocking" force in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. 

Seven Pasquotank County Sheriff's Office deputies were placed on leave following Brown's death. But in May, District Attorney Andrew Womble said deputies were "justified" in shooting at Brown's car because he used his car as a "deadly weapon" and made contact with an officer. He said police body-camera videos “clearly illustrate the officers who used deadly force on Andrew Brown Jr. did so reasonably” and only when their lives were in danger.

Mr. Brown’s family members and their lawyers have described the shooting as an “execution.”

A review of slowed-down bodycam footage by The NY Times shows that 13 of the 14 gunshots — including the fatal one — were fired as Mr. Brown was driving away from officers, not at them. The footage was presented by the district attorney at a press conference and is from four officers’ cameras.

Here’s what the videos of the 20-second interaction show.

The police officers arrive in a Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Office pickup truck at Mr. Brown’s house at 8:23 a.m. on Wednesday, April 21, to execute search and arrest warrants. According to the prosecutor, the police team had been briefed that morning that Mr. Brown, 42, had previous convictions and a history of resisting arrest.

Mr. Brown is sitting in his vehicle outside his house after returning from a drive that morning, the prosecutor added. The officers approach him with their weapons drawn, shouting orders at him.

Mr. Brown does not comply with officers’ orders. The situation escalates.

As two officers reach the driver’s-side door, Mr. Brown backs up the vehicle, and grazes but does not injure an officer.

Mr. Brown ignores officers’ repeated commands to stop the car, and lurches the vehicle forward while steering it sharply to the left, putting officers at risk.

The car initially moves toward the same officer who had been grazed moments earlier. This officer does not move away from the vehicle, but takes a step into Mr. Brown’s path. It’s unclear if the officer is trying to obstruct Mr. Brown’s escape, or trying to evade the car.

The officer briefly places his left hand on the hood of the car, and this is when another officer fires a shot that Mr. Womble said “entered the front windshield” of the car and was not fatal. That contradicts a preliminary internal investigation report, which found that no bullet went through the windshield.

The video shows that there is a brief pause in shooting while Mr. Brown steers his car between two officers. At this point, as Mr. Brown accelerates and drives away, three officers fire 13 more shots into the side and rear of Mr. Brown’s car. One of the shots is fatal, hitting Mr. Brown in the back of his head. His car crashes into a tree 50 yards from his home.

In justifying the police's use of lethal force, Mr. Womble said Mr. Brown “drove recklessly and endangered the officers." He also argued that “they could not simply let him go.”

But the legalities around this can get complicated. “The Supreme Court has never authorized the use of deadly force simply because someone is resisting arrest or fleeing,” Paul Butler, a law professor at Georgetown University and former federal prosecutor, said in an interview about the footage. He also said that “sometimes the best policing is to let the suspect go.” [MORE]

The lawsuit names several officers who allegedly fired their weapons during the incident as defendants, and also accuses Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten and Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie of enabling a culture of excessive force, indifference and silence. 

"All individual Defendants acted with a depraved indifference to human life and conscious disregard for the safety of the general public, constituted an intentional unwelcome and unprivileged touching of Brown, and was undertaken in bad faith and with actual malice," the lawsuit alleges. 

The family is seeking compensatory, consequential and punitive damages, as well as attorneys' fees and other costs of the case — but stressed at the press conference that the case is not about money.