Andrew Brown’s Autopsy Shows ‘kill Shot To The Back Of The Head,’ (family Attorney)…

Attorneys for the fam­i­ly of Andrew Brown Jr., at an emo­tion­al Tuesday morn­ing news con­fer­ence in Elizabeth City, said a pri­vate autop­sy showed that he died when Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies fired a “kill shot to the back of the head.”
Brown, 42, was killed out­side his home in Elizabeth City last Wednesday as deputies were serv­ing search and arrest war­rants relat­ing to felony drug charges.
After hear­ing the autop­sy results, Brown’s son Khalil Ferebee dis­cour­aged vio­lence Tuesday as he addressed the crowd of more than 100 peo­ple that stood out­side the pub­lic safe­ty build­ing down­town. “To my pops … yes­ter­day, I said he was exe­cut­ed,” Ferebee said. “This autop­sy report showed me that was correct.”
The autop­sy also showed an addi­tion­al four gun­shot wounds to Brown’s arm.“That wasn’t enough?” Ferebee said. “They’re going to shoot him in the back of the head? … That’s not right at all.

“Man, stuff got­ta change. It’s real­ly got­ta change for real.”
The press con­fer­ence drew angry shouts from spec­ta­tors, espe­cial­ly when moth­ers of oth­er police vio­lence vic­tims spoke.“All Black men are not ter­ror­ists,” said Tamika Thatch of High Point, whose son was killed in a church in November.
Motioning to Brown’s son, she said, “If his dad­dy killed them, he would nev­er walk the streets again. We need to hold them to the same account­abil­i­ty. They need to be locked up today. Yesterday. Last week.”
Elizabeth City offi­cials on Tuesday announced an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. cur­few in the town start­ing Tuesday night.
Members of the New Black Panther Party from Washington, D.C., stood in the park­ing lot for the news con­fer­ence and called Brown’s death an “assas­si­na­tion” and sought the imme­di­ate release of the footage.

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As attor­ney Ben Crump spoke, some mem­bers called him a “boot-lick­ing ambu­lance chas­er,” insist­ing the streets would get jus­tice. And while Khalil urged against vio­lence, attor­ney Bakari Sellers said calls for peace are not the family’s responsibility“If we want calm, if we want jus­tice,” Sellers said, “that onus is not on the fam­i­ly. That onus is on peo­ple who are hid­ing information.”

Sellers said the fam­i­ly arranged an inde­pen­dent autop­sy, “because the med­ical report we got just said, ‘shot to the head,’ and we want­ed to make sure that it was clear­ly denot­ed that he was shot in the back of the head.”
Attorneys Wayne Kendall and Crump described the details of the autop­sy report with dia­grams show­ing five bul­let wounds, with the fatal shot killing Brown with­in min­utes, they said. It caused him to lose con­trol of his vehi­cle and crash into a tree, they said.

The bul­let went into the base of his neck and “per­fo­rat­ed and pen­e­trat­ed his skill and his brain,” Crump said. Chantel Cherry-Lassiter, an Elizabeth City attor­ney who has worked with the fam­i­ly, said it was “an assas­si­na­tion of this unarmed black man.” “That is painful,” Lassiter said. “We are tired. Mothers are tired. Sisters are tired. Fathers are tired. Communities are tired.” Family mem­bers of Andrew Brown Jr. were shown only 20 sec­onds of footage from one of many body-worn cam­eras from the day he was killed, at the Pasquotank County Public Safety build­ing in Elizabeth City, N.C. on Monday, April 26, 2021

Also Tuesday, the FBI said that it has opened a fed­er­al civ­il rights inves­ti­ga­tion into Brown’s death. The FBI will work with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina and the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. “As this is an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion, we can­not com­ment fur­ther,” FBI spokes­woman Shelley Lynch said. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein tweet­ed sup­port Tuesday for the State Bureau of Investigation’s work on the case.
“A num­ber of peo­ple have asked me to take over this pros­e­cu­tion. I want to clar­i­fy that under North Carolina law, the District Attorney, not the Attorney General, con­trols the pros­e­cu­tion of crim­i­nal cas­es,” Stein tweet­ed. “For my office to play a role in the pros­e­cu­tion, the District Attorney must request our assis­tance. My office has reached out to District Attorney Andrew Womble to offer that assis­tance, which he has acknowledged.

Lassiter was allowed to view a 20-sec­ond snip­pet of the video on Monday with Brown’s son Ferebee and Ferebee’s moth­er, Mia Ferebee. Lassiter said the video showed Brown was shot mul­ti­ple times while he sat in his vehi­cle with his hands on the steer­ing wheel, call­ing it “an exe­cu­tion.” Lassiter said she watched the video more than 10 times, tak­ing notes. “I didn’t sleep very well last night,” she said Tuesday. “I had night­mares. The images from that video stayed with me.” Though the fam­i­ly has seen the 20 sec­onds of body-worn cam­era footage, it has not been released pub­licly, despite pres­sure from law­mak­ers and civ­il rights lead­ers. Law enforce­ment agen­cies can­not release offi­cers’ body cam­era footage, so it’s up to a judge in this case, per North Carolina law.

Lassiter said the family’s legal team believes that detec­tives had been observ­ing Brown for a year, in part through the use of a cam­era mount­ed to a pole near his house. Attorneys have said offi­cials should release footage from that cam­era in addi­tion to offi­cers’ body cam­eras and a dash cam­era in a police van. Protesters have been march­ing in Elizabeth City night­ly since Brown’s shoot­ing, some­times for hours, always with dis­tanced police escorts. On Monday night, near­ly every restau­rant down­town was closed. More than 200 peo­ple marched through down­town that evening demand­ing offi­cials “Release the tape!” The News & Observer report­ed. Elizabeth City remains in a state of emer­gency, which was declared in antic­i­pa­tion of protests sur­round­ing the body-cam footage. Lassiter said Tuesday that despite the occa­sion­al busi­ness in town that has board­ed up its win­dows this week, the march­es and protests have been peace­ful. “That’s how you know, if some­thing hap­pens, if there is vio­lence, it’s not us,” Lassiter said. During Monday night’s march, Mallory Thornton of Durham used a bull­horn to call chants, and at least twice stopped to chal­lenge police offi­cers block­ing traf­fic for the crowd.