On April 21, deputies serving a warrant in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, shot and killed Andrew Brown as he tried to drive away and escape.
On Wednesday, lawyers for Brown’s family said they filed a federal lawsuit over the killing. No Pasquotank County deputies were charged in the case and District Attorney Andrew Womble resisted calls from the governor and others to appoint a special prosecutor.
The killing of 42-year-old Brown, who was unarmed, led to months of protests in the small city in the northeast corner of the state.
"This family needs justice," Lilly Brown Clark, Brown's aunt, said at the conference. She is listed as the plaintiff on the suit and administrator of Brown's estate.
Brown’s killing brought international attention to Elizabeth City this spring, and the case became part of the national conversation on police killings of Black men and women.
"He did not get justice in life and so far he has not gotten justice in death," Bakari Sellers, an attorney representing the family, said.
Noted civil rights attorneys Bakari Sellers, Harry Daniels, Ben Crump, Chantel Cherry-Lassiter and others are representing the family in the federal lawsuit.
A judge has refused to publicly release body camera footage from that morning, but the district attorney showed some of the video to the media, which captured the footage played during the press conference.
Attorneys for the family said that the federal suit filing will allow them to get all video footage and audio of the shooting.
The video shows SWAT-style sheriff’s deputies armed with assault rifles and handguns pull in behind Brown, who is parked at his house in Elizabeth City. The deputies surround Brown’s car and order him to get out of the vehicle.
The expletive-laden video shows Brown drive across an empty lot away from the deputies as they open fire. Brown died from a shot to the back of the head.
Officials say they found drugs in Brown’s car but no weapons. The district attorney contends that Brown used his car as a weapon, but deputies didn’t kill Brown until he was driving away.
After District Attorney Womble decided not to file charges in May, the case was essentially over for state authorities. The FBI continues to investigate the shooting and the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Office.
Womble declined to comment on the lawsuit. But in an email to Spectrum News 1 Wednesday, he stood by his decision not to charge the deputies.
"I stand firmly committed to my original analysis and decision articulated in the May 18, 2021 press release that the shooting death of Andrew Brown was justified due to Mr. Brown’s employment of a deadly weapon against the law enforcement officers in an attempt to effectuate an escape from arrest," Womble said.
The lawsuit notes that Brown was not accused of violent crimes. Deputies went to his house to arrest him on a warrant for allegedly selling drugs in neighborhing Dare County, court records show.
"Brown placed his vehicle in drive and purposely turned his vehicle leftward negotiating his vehicle to avoid all law enforcement members. At no time were any members of the (Pasquotank County Sheriff's Office, Dare County Sheriff's Office) or others in any imminent threat of harm or injury from Brown or his vehicle as he drove his vehicle away from law enforcement," the lawsuit states.
"As Brown’s vehicle gained a considerable distance away from the law enforcement officers, multiple shots were fired into the rear of Brown’s vehicle," the lawsuit reads.
"What's right is right and what's wrong is wrong," said one of Brown's sons who briefly spoke. He then said the shooting death of his father was wrong.
"God sees everything," Brown's son said.
The lawsuit names the sheriffs for Pasquotank and Dare counties and the seven deputies who were there when Brown was killed. It also lists 20 unknown people involved as "John and Jane Does" and unknown companies that provide insurance or surety for the sheriffs' offices.
Brown was a father of seven children. His baby grandson born after his death was at the news conference.
Spectrum News 1 has reached out to the Pasquotank County Sheriff's Office for a response.