The district attorney for Pasquotank County called the killing of Andrew Brown Jr. by deputies "justified" and no charges will be filed, Andrew Womble said Tuesday.
Deputies killed Brown, 42, while serving a search warrant on April 21. Brown was trying to escape deputies in a car when he was shot five times, including a fatal gunshot to the back of the head, according to an autopsy commissioned by the family.
"Mr. Brown’s death, while tragic, was justified," Womble said during a press conference Tuesday.
The deputies involved in the shooting will keep there jobs, but three will be disciplined, Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten said in a video statement released Tuesday afternoon.
"While the district attorney concluded that no criminal law was violated, this was a terrible and tragic outcome, and we could do better," Wooten said.
The district attorney has resisted calls to allow a special prosecutor to take over the case, including from Brown's family, the governor and the state attorney general.
RELATED: Watch: Prosecutor shows body camera video of deputies killing Andrew Brown
Womble's presentation of the State Bureau of Investigation's findings condtradicts what Brown's family and lawyers say they saw in the video. The family said the video showed "an execution" and an unjustified shooting.
As Womble spoke with the press, Brown family attorney Bakari Sellers tweeted, "He was shot in the back of the head."
After watching the video privately last week, attorneys for the family said it did not look like Brown was a threat to deputies before he was killed.
Brown's adult children have been allowed to see about 20 minutes of video from body cameras and dash cameras showing the shooting. A judge did not release the video to the public, citing the ongoing investigation.
Womble showed some of the body camera video and still images from the footage during the press conference Tuesday. He said he would not release the video publicly beyond what he showed to the media.
Womble said deputies surrounded Brown's vehicle, identified themselves and told him to get out of the car.
He said Brown drove at the deputies before he was shot as the officers yelled at him to stop.
"Brown ignored the commands and drove directly at Deputy Lunsford," Womble said. He said the first shot went through the front of Brown's car.
Womble said Brown was driving toward a van with a deputy inside when a different deputy fired the fatal shot.
The entire incident lasted 44 seconds.
The district attorney said it didn't matter how fast Brown was driving or if any officers were directly threatened at the time of the fatal shot. He said Brown used the car as a deadly weapon while trying to get away, which justified the shooting.
"I saw law enforcement officers approach Mr. Brown and give him commands. I saw Mr. Brown refuse those commands and employ his vehicle to get away and at that point put law enforcement officers' lives in danger," Womble said, reacting to what he saw in the video.
"He had two choices: he could comply or he could try to flee. And when he tried to flee, he put their lives in danger," he said. "The officers were simply doing their job and acted reasonably."
"I think Mr. Brown's intention was to get away. I think Mr. Brown was fleeing an arrest because Mr. Brown had drugs on his person and in his car," Womble said during a news conference that stretched to almost 90 minutes.
Womble said deputies found several baggies with suspected drugs in the car and another in Brown's throat.
"If he was going to attempt to flee, he had no choice but to drive directly at the officers," the district attorney said.
Attorneys for the family say the district attorney's findings are wrong. Sellers said Brown was not using his car as a weapon.
"The 'contact' was minimal at best & initiated by officers," Sellers said on Twitter. "He was beyond law enforcement when multiple shots were fired, including kill shot to the back of head."
Rev. Al Sharpton, who spoke at Brown's funeral two weeks ago, said Womble, "gave a bizarre and unconvincing defense of not charging Police for shooting Andrew Brown, Jr. In the back of head!"
He again called for a special prosecutor to be appointed on the case.
North Carolina Attorney Josh Stein said the county should release the video: "I continue to believe it is critically important to release the full body camera footage to the public. The trust in our criminal justice system that is currently fractured will only be more difficult to repair without complete transparency."
"Now that the investigation has concluded, it is imperative that the court authorize the release of the full video to the public immediately," the attorney general said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
The sheriff filed a new motion to release the video to the public Tuesday, noting that the SBI and the internal investigations had been completed.