Ben Crump, Family of Andrew Brown Jr. Press Conference on Autopsy Report Transcript April 27

Ben Crump: (01:29)
We’re going to start off with prayer. We’re going to have Reverend Greg Drumwright pray for us.

Rev. Greg Drumwright: (01:36)
Good morning, everybody. Glad to see everybody here. Glad to see the community here with us today. And I’m praying for this family and this community. Our gracious God, our most merciful and beneficence God, we thank you for the dawning of another day. And for the fight as we continue to press into Andrew Brown’s life mattering. We ask you, Holy spirit to guide us and to give us your grace. Your word says that when justice is done, it is a joy to you, but a terror to evil doers. God, we pray that justice will roll down like waters. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.

Ben Crump: (02:41)
Good morning. I’m Attorney Ben Crump along with Attorney Bakari Sellers, Attorney Harry Daniels, Attorney Wayne Kendall, Attorney Chantel Lassiter. We have the honor of representing the family of Andrew Brown Jr. in these tragic circumstances. We also have present with us today, you all know Ms. Gwen Carr is here, but we have Ms. Tenicka Cox, who is the mother of Fred Cox, whose son was killed by police in High Point, North Carolina at a church. Not only are they killing us for driving while Black, shopping while Black, having a cell phone while Black, sleeping while Black. Like Botham Jean, been in our apartment while Black. But her son was killed while at the church while Black. And she did not think it robbery to offer to come here and be with Andrew Brown’s family. So like Ms. Gwen Carr, we thank her and we continue to pray for justice for your son as well. Fred Cox Jr.

Attendees: (04:25)
Amen. Fred Cox Jr.

Ben Crump: (04:29)
Now today, as we informed you yesterday, we have the results of our autopsy report that was performed by Dr. Brent Hall with Autopsy Professional Association. And you all will get copies of the autopsy report as well as the anatomical models at the end of the press conference. And for those of you not present with us here in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, if you go to press@bencrump.com, they will send it to you electronically.

Ben Crump: (05:17)
We’re going to hear from our legal team in this order, and then we’re going to hear from the family members that are present. You’re going to hear from Attorney Wayne Kendall, and he’s going to go through some of the details of the autopsy. Then you’re going to hear from my other great co-council [inaudible 00:05:51] that is going to be Attorney Harry Daniels. And then you’re going to hear from the brilliant commentator attorney Bakari Sellers, and then you will here from, Kahlil, the son of Andrew Brown, Jr. And finally, from our legal team, you will hear from Chantel Lassiter, who not only is a member of our legal team but personally knew Andrew very well. And this is going to be most emotional for his son and his family, but also for Chantel who became like family in working with this family.

Ben Crump: (06:46)
I want to thank Mr. Darius Horton. He really helped the family a lot. He will be handling the services, the funeral services, on Monday at 12 noon. But he also made sure that whatever the family needed with making sure they worked with the medical examiner, that he accommodated them. So we can never say thank you enough, Mr. Horton. Thank you.

Attendees: (07:17)
Thank you Mr. Horton.

Ben Crump: (07:21)
Now you all know from the death certificate that it was a penetrating gunshot wound to the head. But Attorney Sellers, what they did not know was that it was a kill shot to the back of the head. And so we’re going to have Attorney Wayne Kendall go through the autopsy report for you in detail. And then we’re going to have other members of the legal team talk about the relevance of how we put this puzzle together. Because, they won’t release the video. So painstakingly, we have to keep putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Attorney Wayne Kendall.

Wayne Kendall: (08:19)
Thank you, Ben. My name is Wayne Kendall. I want to first thank the Brown family for giving me the opportunity to be here, to be a part of the legal team, representing them in this investigation and the legal part of representing them, if necessary, in court.

We commissioned a private individual autopsy report, post-mortem report, because we don’t have access to anything that’s official. And what our preliminary autopsy report shows is that there were five penetrating bullet wounds to the body of Andrew Brown Jr. Now, consistent with what you have probably already heard is that the first initial shots were through the front windshield of the vehicle that he was located in at the time that-

Ben Crump: (09:23)
Hold on one second, they’re trying to do surveillance on us.

What you probably heard already and you heard yesterday when Ms. Lassiter gave her presentation of what she saw on the video yesterday was that Mr. Brown had his arms up on the steering wheel of the vehicle that he was then located in. And what happened was that there were four bullet wounds to his right arm. These bullet wounds, according to the autopsy, were more or less glancing shots. They were not fatal shots. So he was able to back up as these shots were coming into the vehicle, he was able to back up, turn the vehicle around, spin off across a vacant lot. And at that time he was hit in the back of the head here. And that is the fatal bullet wound that was described in the death certificate as a penetrating bullet wound to the skull. And that was the cause of death. That was the manner of death by gunshot.

So we now know, because we have not been able to get any official documentation concerning this shooting, that this in fact was a fatal wound to the back of Mr. Brown’s head, as he was leaving the site, trying to evade being shot at by these particular law enforcement-

Being shot at by these particular law enforcement officers who we believe did nothing but a straight out execution by shooting him in the back of his head as he was trying to get away in a moving vehicle, which no doubt is also against police practice to shoot into a moving vehicle, to a person who pose no threat whatsoever to the officers then and there on the scene. So in summary, his death was caused by these officers with a bullet wound to the back of his head that caused him to lose control of that vehicle and crash into a tree. And I think once the video actually comes out, we’re going to also found out that there was shots into that vehicle after he crashed into the tree and after he had been hit in the back of the head. The certificate also says that the time of death was within minutes, within minutes after this particular gunshot wound to the back of the head. Thank you.

Speaker 1: (12:08)
Thank you, Attorney Kendall. As Attorney Harry Daniels comes before you, it’s important to note that the gunshot wound to the head, the entrance was the back of the head, range in immediate projectile sequentially perforated and penetrated his skull and his brain. It’s important to note that the projectile was recovered in his brain. It never exited. And the trajectory, Attorney Daniels, was from bottom to top, left to right, back to front. So it went into the base of the neck, in the bottom of the skull, and got lodged in his brain. And that was the cause of death. Attorney Harry Daniels will put this in greater context. [crosstalk 00:13:15].

Harry Daniels: (13:16)
Exactly. An execution. [crosstalk 00:13:19] execution. [crosstalk 00:13:21].

Speaker 2: (13:21)
[inaudible 00:13:21].

An execution, that’s what took place. That’s what Attorney Wayne Kendall described. He went over the medical points of it, but that’s exactly what you just described. Overkill execution. The law enforcement in this country cannot be judge, jury, and executioner. Andrew did not get his due process. He was innocent. I don’t care what the warrant, what the search warrant, he was innocent. He maintained the presumptions of innocent. So far as I’m concerned, that innocent man was killed by law enforcement, overkill unjustified shooting. Shot this man while he was had his hands on the steering wheel. He wasn’t fleeing. He wasn’t fleeing. Let’s get that word gone. He wasn’t fleeing. He was trying to run because he was scared of his life. He was scared for his life. Anybody here, if you get shot at… hold on, brother. Hold on, brother. If you getting shot at, you’re going to run. That’s bottom line. Second nature. Fight or flight. You’re going to run.

He left, tried to save his life, and they continue to shoot and put a bullet in the back of his head. In the back of his shed. A black man unarmed, a bullet in the back of his head for no reason whatsoever. This was an innocent man. I don’t care what… You can put out whatever you want to put out. You can try to assassinate his character, but you need to talk about the assassination of him and who committed the assassination. All right, I’m going to pass it on [crosstalk 00:15:23].

Bakari Sellers: (15:30)
One of the things that I wanted to mention today is that we have the privilege of [crosstalk 00:15:42] My brothers, my brothers, this is a message for everyone watching. [crosstalk 00:15:48] Hey. Hey, you don’t have to like us. That’s fine. But please have respect for the family. [crosstalk 00:16:00] So what we’re trying to say is you don’t have to care for Ben or Bakari or Harry. You don’t have to be Democrat or Republican. You don’t have to be white or black to realize that what this family has not gotten is justice.

We have an execution here in Elizabeth City. We have an execution here in Elizabeth City. And what I want people to understand while we have this execution is we demand justice from the sheriff’s department. We demand justice from this district attorney. We demand justice, not for anybody standing up here, but we demand justice for Andrew Brown and his family, Andrew Brown and his children.

So you don’t have to care or like Benjamin Crump. You don’t have to like Bakari Sellers. You don’t have to like Harry Daniels. You don’t have to be a Democrat or Republican to feel like injustice was done. You don’t have to be black. You don’t have to be white. You just have to have a beating heart, a moral conscience to understand that injustice was done. So, we will deal with people who may not like us. We will deal with people who may not vote like us. But at the end of the day, I do not care what you look like, who you pray to, where you walk or how you vote. But what I do care about is the fact that an injustice was done.

Now, y’all done got me carried away. I know that people said that I switched accents. My daddy in Denmark, in Denmark, South Carolina. My daddy would always say, “You never argue with a fool because you don’t know who’s watching and they can’t tell the difference.” [crosstalk 00:17:39] But I’m saying today for everybody, we on the same side and we want justice. We actually had a conversation. We stand together. We got [Kahlil 00:17:46], we got his brother on FaceTime right here. We got Kahlil’s mama right here. We have the mother of the family. We have five kids. And I don’t care how you vote. I don’t care if you’re black or white. I don’t care if you don’t like me, but have a moral conscience for the injustice that’s going on. The media has to gain control and say we demand some transparency and some action from this body. We don’t know what the video is going to show because they ain’t showing us nothing.

And we also have bad laws in the state of North Carolina. And everybody should be held accountable for the fact that in Columbus, Ohio, the video came out in a few hours [crosstalk 00:18:34] and you hear that pain. You hear the pain of the young lady in the back. That pain is all throughout the community. [crosstalk 00:18:43].

And so the last point I want to make is one of the worst questions we always get asked. My last point is this, one of the worst questions we always get asked is can the family tell everybody to be calm and peaceful? And people always come up to the family and put that onus on them. They always say, can the family have a message to people? We appreciate the people who are protesting peacefully. We appreciate that. But if we want calm, if we want justice, then that onus is not on this family. That onus is the people who are hiding the information we need to get answers. And so, I know that we want to yell. I know we want to scream, but I just ask that you all take a moment and breathe and pray for Kahlil. Kahlil is going to come up, and Kahlil is the only one that’s in this audience, I do believe, that actually had to witness his father be executed.

So again, I don’t care what you look like, who you vote for, who you like or don’t like up here. I understand that. But let’s lift young brother up because he’s witnessed something, and he’s now a part of a fraternity that none of us want to be a part of [crosstalk 00:20:01] Kahlil.

Kahlil: (20:06)
For one, there’s too much violence going on. That’s not the key. Because that’s just going to make everything worse. It’s too much going on already with us black folks doing it to each other. That’s not right at all. We need to focus on that, if that’s the case. So violence is not the key.

Kahlil: (20:28)
But to my pop, man, yesterday I said he was executed. This autopsy report showed me that was correct. Those three gunshots to the arm. That wasn’t enough. That wasn’t enough. It’s obvious he was trying to get away. It’s obvious. And they going to shoot him in the back of the head. Man, that shit not right. That’s not right at all, man. [crosstalk 00:20:56] Man, stuff got to change. It really got to change, for real. [crosstalk 00:21:08]

Speaker 1: (21:08)
There was actually four gunshots to the arm, and they kept shooting. Now we’re going to hear from Attorney, [Chantel 00:21:16] Lassiter.

Chantel Lassiter: (21:21)
I want y’all to hear the pain in this community, the pain, the yelling that y’all hear, the agony that’s out here. This is pain. And a lot of times, pain is interpreted as rebellion or whatever people want to interpret it as. Call it what it is. It’s painful. This is painful for this family. It’s painful for this community. We came up here yesterday, as Kahlil said, and we told you it was execution. And people are questioning, well, what about this? What about that? It was an execution. It was an assassination of this unarmed black man. And that is painful. And we are tired. Mothers are tired. Sisters are tired. [crosstalk 00:22:03]

Speaker 3: (22:01)
Sisters are tired.

Crowd: (22:02)
Right. That’s right. Don’t forget about fathers.

Speaker 3: (22:04)
Fathers are tired.

Crowd: (22:05)
That’s right.

Speaker 3: (22:06)
Communities are tired. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, people that you call your family is tired. Y’all have to hear that pain. Y’all don’t tune it out because people are yelling and it’s not traditional. It’s not conforming to the norm. It is pain. You have to hear that. And justice will be served.

Benjamin Crump: (22:25)
Justice will be served.

Crowd: (22:26)
Amen. Thank you.

Ms. Gwen Carr, Ms. Tenicka Cox, two members of a fraternity that nobody wants to be a part of. Some say it’s one of the quickest growing fraternities in the black community, having the police kill our loved ones unjustly. And so as attorney masterfully talked about pain, you see the pain in real life with these mothers who will have a hole in their heart forever because their sons didn’t bury them, they buried their sons. We will start with Ms. Gwen Carr, who is one of the original mothers of the movement from New York City. Her son is Eric Garner.

Gwen Carr: (23:26)
Good morning, everyone.

Crowd: (23:26)
Good morning

Gwen Carr: (23:29)
Here, I stand again in solidarity with this family who has joined a fraternity, a club that no one wants to be a part of. But when you do become a part of it, you don’t know the pain, you don’t know the strength that the family has to have in order to endure. And for Khalil to watch his father being executed, can you just imagine? Put yourself, don’t only have sympathy, have empathy, put yourself in that position. What would you do if you saw your child, your mother, your father, whomever, being executed, an unarmed person being executed?

Gwen Carr: (24:19)
They came here for that purpose. They never intended, in my opinion, they never intended to take him alive.

Tell them, Gwen.

Gwen Carr: (24:29)
They came with the intention. They had their own agenda when they came to that car and that’s not right. This is what they do in the black and brown communities. They come to us, they brutalize, they terrorize, they kill, and then it’s swept under the rug. But we have to come together as communities to stop this. We can’t keep going through this. My son died almost seven years ago and I had to watch his execution over and over again. I never watched the tape in its entirety because I couldn’t. And I know it’s going to be just like a lot of these family members.

Gwen Carr: (25:12)
They’re not going to be able to see that. It’s horrible, what they do to us. And it has to stop. It has to stop. All black and brown men are not terrorists. They’re not all guilty. They talk about police not being all bad. So all black people are not bad. There’s bad in every community, in every race and creed, we have bad people. Just watch scary people. Y’all watch that on TV, and it’s not all us. But I just want y’all to embrace this family. I want y’all to give this family justice. I want the media to record this for what it is because it is what it is, an execution.

Crowd: (26:06)
And they need to be arrested right now.

Here you go, sweetheart. This is Tenicka Cox, the mother of Fred Cox, Jr. Many of you don’t know her story, but it needs to know her son mattered.

Tenicka Cox: (26:29)
My son, we’re from High Point, North Carolina. My son was murdered, executed in a church on November 8th by a plain clothed detective. The pain is unbearable. It’s undescribable. And my heart goes out to Khalil. I can’t imagine his pain, seeing his father slaughtered like a pig. They killed him. He is a murderer. They’re trying to make it common to kill, for the cops to kill people of our skin tone. We got to stop it. They got to be held accountable with killing us. It’s not normal. And we need to start right now by putting them behind bars.

Tenicka Cox: (27:25)
Because had it been the other way around and his daddy killed them, he would never walk the streets again. So we got hold them at the same level as we hold our black and brown boys. They need to be locked up right now, yesterday, last week. November 8th, he have been locked up. But I still don’t know who this man is that murdered my son in a church. Justice for your daddy, baby. I’m standing with you 100%.

Say his name, Fred Cox.

Crowd: (27:55)
Fred Cox.

Andrew Brown.

Crowd: (27:55)
Andrew brown.

Very briefly, we will hear from Arthur Austin and Kirsten Foy.

Crowd: (28:01)
Say his name, Andrew Brown. Say his name Andrew Brown.

Arthur Austin: (28:09)
Yeah. I I’m no politician. I’m no activist. I’m just a person that grew up in the hood that always everybody know me for the truth. And I just want to say one thing to all the cops across America. If we running away from y’all …

Tell them, Arthur.

Arthur Austin: (28:45)
… Why do y’all feel the need to use a bullet to stop us from running? This ain’t when we was kids and we played cops and robbers. To me, y’all make me feel like y’all still playing that game. That if they get in the way, they can’t get away, but y’all use a bullet, which is fatal that we can’t come back from. I don’t understand that. They asked this man to comply. He complied and he died. If we comply, why do we die?

Mr. Foy.

Rev. Kirsten Foy: (29:22)
No justice.

Crowd: (29:23)
No peace.

No justice.

Crowd: (29:25)
No peace.

No justice.

Crowd: (29:25)
No peace.

What do we want?

Crowd: (29:25)
Justice.

What do we want?

Crowd: (29:27)
Justice.

What do we want?

Crowd: (29:31)
Justice.

When do we want it?

Crowd: (29:32)
Now.

When do we want it?

Crowd: (29:34)
Now.

When do we want it?

Crowd: (29:35)
Now.

My name is Reverend Kirsten John Foy. And I’ve traveled down here with Gwen Carr. And I have observed the disrespect that the city of Elizabeth had displayed not only to this family, to this community, but to the lawyers, to the elected official who represent this city. And it is high time that we elevate this conversation and ask that the Department of Justice come in and oversee how the city of Elizabeth plans to move forward. They announced yesterday, the declaration of a state of emergency prior to the release of the video, which means they know the inflammatory nature of the content and they know the community is not going to respond in a way that is manageable for them.

So what that means is that the city of Elizabeth, Elizabeth City is going to continue in the vein of disrespect of this family and this community, and cannot be trusted with the oversight and the security of the city, the protestors, the family, and this community. The Justice Department needs to come in and oversee this right.

Crowd: (31:20)
Amen.

Amen. Say no mo, show the video.

Crowd: (31:27)
Say no mo, show the video. Say no mo, show the video.

Roland Martin, open for questions.

Roland Martin: (31:37)
Ben Crump, it has been six days since this shooting. Have you ever seen a situation where an official autopsy has not been released by the medical examiner, no comment from the district attorney and no public comment even since yesterday from the sheriff and the county attorney?

Speaker 4: (31:54)
Repeat the question.

Repeat the question, so I want to hear it clear.

Again, have you ever seen a situation where six days after a shooting, no release of the actual autopsy from the medical examiner? That’s first.

We have not gotten any preliminary autopsy or anything from the medical examiner at this point.

District attorney, have y’all had any contact with the DA? Has the DA said anything to the attorneys or the family about an investigation?

Speaker 4: (32:26)
The question was is Roland asked has the team had any contact with the district attorney? I’ve spoken to the district attorney. I believe it was on Thursday. Shantelle, was it Thursday? Spoke with the district attorney on Thursday, myself with some community leaders, as well as my Shantelle and I, one thing we was promised was transparency from his office and that the video if shown to the family that it would be the raw video. No redaction or anything. Obviously, that didn’t happen. As of any further communication, we haven’t heard from the district attorney since.

Do you know if the DA’s actually-

Speaker 5: (33:03)
We haven’t heard from the district attorney since.

Speaker 6: (33:03)
So do you know if the DA is actually locked in investigation?

Speaker 5: (33:05)
No. No, we do not. He hasn’t given any indication they’re having any investigation whatsoever. The FBI is leading investigation. The DA were doing the prosecution.

Manuel Bojorquez: (33:16)
Can you comment on the North Carolina law that requires the judge to sign off on the police [inaudible 00:33:19].

Speaker 7: (33:20)
He asked … What’s your name?

Manuel Bojorquez: (33:24)
Manuel [Bojorquez 00:33:24], CBS.

Speaker 8: (33:24)
Manuel from CBS asked to comment on the law in North Carolina. And I want people to focus on this because as we try to change this system that leads to the Black blood that flows in the streets of this country, we have to understand that we need to focus on the halls of the State House and the halls of Congress because in North Carolina, they have a bad law. But what I can also tell you is if Andrew Brown did something to justify his shooting, then they would have gotten that approval from a judge last Wednesday night or Thursday morning. If he attempted to hit them, shot at them, anything, which we know didn’t happen, they would’ve gotten that approval early. This law makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And let me tell you why I am lasering in on this-

Speaker 9: (34:09)
Be careful. [inaudible 00:34:10] words because they did it on my case. [crosstalk 00:34:11] words and create laws like they did with me. [crosstalk 00:34:16].

Speaker 8: (34:19)
She’s right though. She’s right though. Let me try to be clear. I want to be extremely clear. That’s why to protect law enforcement and Black bodies, we need to make sure that you can see these videos in 48 hours.

Speaker 10: (34:33)
And that will be the policy that we have to advocate. It’s not enough to just get justice for this family because we know they keep killing us and keep making hashtags. We need to have transparency. We need to have it where the video is released immediately. Kind of like in the Chauvin case, we saw Minneapolis do things that needed to be done. Now it seems like in Elizabeth City, we’re starting to retreat.

Speaker 11: (35:02)
Based on the information that you have from this autopsy, can you analyze with the car backing [inaudible 00:35:09], with the direction of the shot to the right arm, what actually happened? The officers approached from the right side as the car was backing up. The shots were fired. Explain to us, based on the information you have, how this unfolded.

Speaker 5: (35:24)
The question was based on the autopsy and what was shown on the video, the limited footage on the video … the consistency. Very consistent. Ms. [Lassiter 00:35:34], very consistent with Ms. Lassiter stated, what she saw, that they believed the officers were already shooting at Mr. Brown. That’s consistent with the shots in the arm, and also consistent with the shot in the back of the head that Mr. Brown backed up, was leaving, and is shot in the back of the head. Very consistent. No inconsistency with the report and what we saw in the video.

Speaker 10: (35:56)
It substantiates it.

Speaker 11: (35:58)
Yeah, but would the officers be approaching from the passenger side if his right arm was hit?

Speaker 10: (36:02)
Ms. Lassiter can tell you.

Ms. Lassiter: (36:04)
I’m going to repeat it. They were opposing from every direction, from the side, from the front, from the other side. So all the guns were drawn. You heard multiple shots. So even watching the video, I couldn’t tell you what gun shot what, but there was multiple shots, multiple weapons, and multiple officers.

Speaker 10: (36:17)
And they had these AR, these assault rifles, that they firing with as they approach.

Speaker 8: (36:23)
One second.

Speaker 12: (36:26)
I wanted to know is there a sense that the car was in motion before shots were fired?

Speaker 8: (36:31)
No. We have no inclination that the car was in motion at all before shots were fired.

Speaker 10: (36:35)
And remember the video started, there were already shots being fired.

Speaker 11: (36:39)
So I’m thinking there were shot was because for those of us that have gone and walked through it, you can see the tire marks. You can see the bullets in the neighbor’s house, which is down range of where he was trying to get away. Is it your team’s belief then that they intentionally withheld showing you the shot, the frames, the video that would have been the possible fatal gunshot? Because he would have been trying to leave across the vacant parking lot.

Speaker 8: (37:13)
You asked the question about intentionality. Nobody up here. I don’t know where Wayne is, but Wayne has been practicing law longer than us all. Has seen an edited video. So yes, law enforcement intentionally edited the video to 20 seconds.

Speaker 10: (37:31)
20 seconds.

Speaker 8: (37:32)
And intentionally blurred out the officer-

Speaker 5: (37:35)
And guns.

Speaker 8: (37:35)
And guns. And showed us what they wanted to show us under the guise of it being pertinent. I do want you to know, to be extremely clear, the law does not require a judge’s order to show the family the entire video. The law does not require a judge’s order to show the family the entire video. That was a discretionary decision made by the county to show them 20 seconds under the auspices of it being pertinent to them.

Speaker 10: (38:11)
And we have to remember if the roles were reversed and it showed Andrew Brown Jr. doing something wrong, you all would have got that video immediately.

Speaker 13: (38:23)
I have a question.

Speaker 10: (38:23)
It’s only when the police do something wrong that they don’t show us the video.

Speaker 13: (38:27)
Who have the authority to make them release the video footage?

Speaker 8: (38:31)
All these people right here. So the question was asked, who has the authority to make them release the video? And this is when you … I want to be extremely clear again, that the family just wants justice and transparency and accountability. But we can’t do this by ourselves. It takes more than us to do this. And that’s why it requires everybody watching, whether or not you like Andrew Brown or loved Andrew Brown or not, that doesn’t matter. But everybody should be on the same side of justice and accountability.

Speaker 10: (39:01)
Yeah.

Speaker 14: (39:01)
I want to answer this gentleman’s question about the truncation of the video. If you know anything at all about police community encounters, you know that the most important part is the initiation of the encounter. What happened at the initiation of the encounter, as Ms. Lassiter told you yesterday, the video only showed a part of the encounter. And at the time the video started, they were already shooting into the vehicle. So we never got to see the initiation of the encounter. That is whether or not there were commands made, whether or not those commands were complied … We don’t know. We don’t know. We can only guess as to what happened in those seconds before the video started that we saw. And the Sheriff said it was only 30 seconds, but we only saw 20 seconds. So the first 10, we don’t know.

Speaker 8: (40:01)
One more question. [crosstalk 00:40:02]

Speaker 10: (40:03)
We do not have that information yet because the bullet was removed from his head by the time it got to our independent medical examiner that was retained by the family.

Speaker 15: (40:13)
You have the information that five bullets total hit him. Do you have information on how many total shots were fired?

Speaker 8: (40:17)
We have no idea.

Speaker 10: (40:18)
No idea, but the video, based on what Ms. Lassiter and [Kahlil 00:40:22] heard, there were dozens of bullets fired.

Speaker 16: (40:27)
If the tape was tampered with, can charges be brought forward to anyone?

Speaker 5: (40:31)
Somebody else with a question up in the back.

Speaker 17: (40:32)
What should be going on with those deputies right now, in your mind?

Speaker 10: (40:34)
The deputies that have been placed on administrative leave is still receiving salaries. They are on a vacation for killing Andrew Brown. We have to change this policy that police officers, just like in Daunte Wright’s matter, they try to resign, get the [inaudible 00:40:52] ride off into the sunset after they shoot us in the back. We can not allow this policy to continue.

Speaker 5: (41:00)
One more question right here. Last one.

Speaker 18: (41:01)
I know you’ve described in great detail [inaudible 00:41:04] to see the video and you’ve released to us all about the findings. I was wondering, were you able to tell how close of range this is, as far as feet when they fired these guns?

Speaker 10: (41:15)
They say intermediate, based on our independent autopsy. But that’s why we need the video to be released so we can have-

Speaker 18: (41:22)
Intermediate could mean-

Speaker 10: (41:23)
He hasn’t seen the video-

Speaker 8: (41:25)
Means somewhere in between close and far.

Speaker 10: (41:28)
He has-

Speaker 18: (41:28)
It’s fairly vague.

Speaker 10: (41:29)
Yeah, he hasn’t seen the video either. You know who knows it? The County Sheriff’s Deputy.

Speaker 5: (41:35)
He’s behind us.

Speaker 10: (41:36)
All right.

Speaker 5: (41:36)
Thank you so much.

Speaker 10: (41:37)
Thank y’all so much.

Speaker 16: (41:39)
One last question. The video was tampered with. Will charges be brought forth towards Elizabeth City Police Department?

Speaker 8: (41:44)
We going to hope so. We don’t know. We want full accountability. The answer is we hope so.

Speaker 10: (41:51)
Don’t say no more, show the video. [crosstalk 00:42:04].

Ben Crump, Family of Andrew Brown Jr. Press Conference on Autopsy Report Transcript April 27

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