North Carolina Judge Rejects Request to Release Shooting Video of Andrew Brown Jr.

A judge on Wednesday denied requests to release body camera video in the case of a Black man who was shot to death by North Carolina deputies as they tried to arrest him on drug-related warrants.

Judge Jeffery Foster said he believed the videos contained information that could harm the ongoing investigation or threaten the safety of people seen in the footage. He said the video must remain out of public view for at least 30 days.

"The release at this time would create a serious threat to the fair, impartial and orderly administration of justice," Foster said.

However, he said, videos from multiple body cameras and one dashboard camera must be shown to Brown's family within 10 days. He said some portions of the video may be blurred or redacted, including conversations between officers. The family previously saw only a 20-second portion of one body camera video.

The decision came shortly after a North Carolina prosecutor said that Andrew Brown Jr. had hit law enforcement officers with his car before they opened fire.

District Attorney Andrew Womble told the judge that he viewed the body camera video and disagreed with a characterization by attorneys for Brown's family that his car was stationary when the shooting started. Womble said the video shows that Brown's car made contact with law enforcement twice before shots could be heard on the video.

Calling the family attorney's description "patently false," Womble said the video shows that Brown's car made contact with law enforcement twice before shots could be heard on the video.

"As it backs up, it does make contact with law enforcement officers," he 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."

Womble said that officers shouted commands and tried to open the car before any shots were fired.

The Pasquotank County sheriff, Tommy Wooten II, has previously indicated that none of the deputies were injured. At a news conference hours after the shooting, he said, "They're fine," when asked about the deputies.

Womble argued that body camera video from the shooting, a portion of which was shown to the family on Monday, should be kept from the public for another month so that state investigators can make progress on their probe of the shooting.

The hearing comes amid pressure on authorities to release the video and calls for a special prosecutor to take the state's case over from Womble. The judge said he planned to issue a decision Wednesday after a short recess.

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