Authorities Are Still Withholding The Video In the Anthony Brown Shooting

One week after a former Minneapolis police officer was convicted of murdering George Floyd, African Americans continued to follow the developments of another officer-involved killing of a Black man unfold in Elizabeth, North Carolina. Anthony Brown,42, was shot in the back of the head by police.

“To my pops, man, yesterday I said he was executed,” exclaimed Khalil Ferebee, Brown’s son. “This autopsy report shows me that was correct. Those three gunshots to the arm – that wasn’t enough? That wasn’t enough. It was obvious he was trying to get away. It’s obvious, and they’re going to shoot him in the back of the head? Man, that s*** not right. That’s not right at all … stuff gotta change.”

Law enforcement authorities have released few details related to the shooting. They have refused to say if Brown was armed, and seven unnamed sheriff’s deputies have been placed on leave. The Sheriff of Pasquotank County, Tommy Wooten, is not saying if Brown was complying or fleeing when deputies tried to serve him the warrant.

Demands for the release of the video of the shooting have yielded only a 20-second clip watched by Brown’s family and their attorneys. Authorities say at issue is whether deputies had reason to believe that Brown’s actions put them at risk “for serious injury or death.”

“It was an execution. It was an assassination of this unarmed Black man – that is painful, and we are tired,” said Chantal Cherry-Lassiter, one of the family’s attorneys. “Mothers are tired, sisters are tired, fathers are tired, communities are tired. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, people that you call your family are tired. Y’all have to hear that pain. Don’t tune it out because people are yelling because it’s not traditional, or it’s not conforming to the norm. It is pain. You have to hear that, and justice will be served.”

Cherry-Lassiter said the video clip showed Brown with his hands on the steering wheel.

Brown’s killing short-circuited the sense of relief many Black Americans felt after the guilty verdict in the George Floyd case. But the very next day the news of the police shooting that claimed Brown’s life made national news, dashing hopes for a new era in police treatment of African Americans. The mother of Eric Garner – who died at the hands of New York City police using a prohibited chokehold — joined protesters to call for justice, using the word “fraternity – a club that no one wants to belong to” as a description for the growing number of families bound by the shared grief of a loved one killed by police.

“When you do become a part of it, you don’t know the pain,” Gwen Carr stated. “You don’t know the strength the family has to have to endure.”

Eyewitnesses have said when authorities arrived Brown tried to drive away, and that’s when officers opened fire. One neighbor reported finding 14 shell casings.