PASQUOTANK COUNTY, N.C. — A district attorney in North Carolina said in court on Wednesday that Andrew Brown Jr.’s car “made contact” with sheriff’s deputies twice before law enforcement opened fire, calling comments made earlier this week by one of the attorneys representing Brown’s family about what was captured on 20 seconds of body camera footage “patently false.”
The claim came during a hearing at the Pasquotank County Courthouse, where Superior Court Judge Jeffery Foster ruled all bodycam footage of the April 21 fatal deputy-involved shooting of Brown will be delayed for public release for at least 30 days, Fox News reported.
District Attorney Andrew Womble told the judge that video showed Brown’s car made contact with deputies twice as he backed out of the driveway of his home in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, that day, before law enforcement began firing.
“As it backs up, it does make contact with law enforcement officers,” Womble said, adding that the car stops again. “The next movement of the car is forward. It is in the direction of law enforcement and makes contact with law enforcement. It is then and only then that you hear shots.”
Moreover, statements made by attorney Chantel Cherry-Lassiter at a press conference earlier this week describing the “movements” of Brown’s car in the video are “patently false,” Womble added.
Deputies had arrived to serve narcotic related arrest and search warrants.
As a result of the misinformation, Womble asked the judge, who also viewed the footage, to publicly admonish Brown’s family attorneys for failing to give a fair and accurate depiction of the video, Fox reported.
Cherry-Lassiter, an attorney representing the Brown family, was part of a group privately shown 20 seconds of body camera video on Monday inside the Pasquotank County Public Safety building. She called the deputy-involved shooting an “execution.”
Though he delayed the release of the footage at this time, Foster approved disclosure of the videos to Brown’s adult son, Khalil Ferebee, other immediate family members and one licensed attorney in North Carolina within 10 days. The faces of the deputies will be blurred before the disclosure, the judge said. The disclosure will include five files, but four videos in total from body cameras and a dash cam.
Releasing the videos at this time would jeopardize the reputation or safety of a person, pose a serious threat to the administration of justice and infringe on the confidentiality necessary to protect a possible criminal investigation, Foster said. The judge also denied a petition made be a media coalition for the videos’ release despite the compelling public interest.
The body camera footage will be held for release between at least 30 days and no more than 45 days to allow North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) to move forward with their probe into the shooting, Foster said. The SBI will be ordered to present its findings to the court, when Foster will make another determination about the videos’ release. The judge said he spent hours Tuesday reviewing all footage obtained by SBI of the shooting and therefore knew the contents before considering petitions from several parties Wednesday.
Petitions to release the body camera footage came from a media coalition and Pasquotank County Attorney R. Michael Cox, who filed on behalf of Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten II. Seven deputies have been placed on administrative leave since the shooting, Law Officer reported.
“I wanted the body camera footage to be released to the public as soon as possible, and I’m disappointed it won’t happen immediately,” Wooten said in statement after the hearing. “Obviously, I’ll respect the judge’s ruling. Although we’re unable to show the public what happened right now, the independent investigators are working to complete their investigation. As soon as all of the important facts are given to me, I will act quickly to ensure accountability and I’ll be as transparent as I possibly can with the public.”
In a statement provided to Fox News before the hearing, SBI Director Robert L. Schurmeier had said state investigators “would defer to the local authorities and the courts to make that determination as guided by State law” regarding all relevant video.
“The SBI supports transparency to the greatest extent possible, as we think this serves the interests of the family, the local community, and North Carolina as a whole,” Schurmeier added.
