‘Pump Your Brakes, Slow Down!’: North Carolina Lt. Gov. Torches Activists and Gov. for ‘Sickening’ Agenda on Andrew Brown Shooting
On Monday, the attorney for Pasquotank County in North Carolina showed a snippet of body camera footage to the family of Andrew Brown, a 42-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by police last week. Police in Elizabeth City, NC were attempting to serve Brown with an arrest warrant on drug related charges. A witness who described the chaotic scene said police shot Brown as he was attempting to drive away.
The shooting and lack of details about it have led to protests in the community.
The Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Office hasn’t released many details of the shooting to the public, but after reviewing the brief footage, Brown family attorney Chantel Cherry-Lassiter called the fatal shooting an “execution.” She said the snippet is 20 seconds long and shows that officers shot at Brown in the driver’s seat with his hands on the steering wheel while the vehicle was parked in a driveway. “He wasn’t reaching for anything, he wasn’t touching anything, he wasn’t throwing anything around,” she said.
According to Cherry-Lassiter, Brown put the vehicle in reverse and drove off, with deputies shooting at him. The vehicle then crashed into a tree. Brown’s death certificate says he died from a gunshot wound to the head.
As is to be expected, Brown’s family and local activists are demanding more answers. The more time goes by without additional details being released, the more speculation about potential police wrongdoing has grown.
Nonetheless, that didn’t stop Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC) from insisting that activists should directing their attention elsewhere. On Monday, Robinson, told Laura Ingraham on Fox News that activists need to “pump [the] brakes.”
What I would say to those activists is, “Pump your brakes, slow down, let the justice system take its course. Let’s take a look at this and find out what’s happened. What they should be focused on is the seven-year-old who was murdered in Hickory right here in North Carolina. What they should be focused on is the seven-year-old who was murdered in Chicago last week. We are seeing murders take place of the most innocent across this nation at an alarming pace, and these activists and our politicians at the highest level are turning an absolute blind eye. One of the most disgusting things happening in this nation right now is we see the poorest of the poor being murder with impunity in neighborhoods across this nation, and nobody cares because they’re too focused on these ersatz issues of injustice that are being highlighted.
Robinson appears to be referencing the killing of seven-year-olds Zakylen Greylen Harris in Hickory, and Jaslyn Adams in Chicago.
Later in the interview he also slammed North Carolina’s Democratic governor Roy Cooper (D-NC) for saying there is systemic racism in the state.
Tonight we had the State of the State Address right here in North Carolina. Our Democratic governor Roy Cooper had the unmitigated gall to talk about how systemic racism flows throughout this state, and talk about how black people are afraid to walk the streets and they can’t walk the streets without being shot by police officers.
And he failed to mention the success we have seen in this state. One of the great of the successes in this state in its history: the first Black man, the first Black person to be elected lieutenant governor, was standing right behind him and he did not even acknowledge me. It points to the fact that for them it’s not about color. It’s not about race. It’s not about justice. It’s an about an agenda and it is sickening.
You can watch above via Fox News.
