Posted on June 14, 2019

Black Man Killed by U.S. Marshals in Memphis Posted a Facebook Live Boasting That Police Couldn’t Catch Him and They’d ‘Have to Kill Me’

Emily Crane, Daily Mail, June 14, 2019

A 20-year-old black man who was shot dead by U.S. Marshals during an attempted arrest outside his family’s home had filmed a Facebook Live video just hours earlier boasting that police couldn’t catch him and they would ‘have to kill me’.

Brandon Webber was shot and killed by officers on Wednesday night as they tried to arrest him for multiple felony warrants outside his home in Frayser in North Memphis.

Shortly before he was shot, Webber posted an eight-minute live video on Facebook that showed him in a car, rapping and apparently smoking a marijuana cigarette.

At one point in the video, which was deleted on Thursday, Webber said he could see a police cruiser driving by.

With a laugh, he looked directly into the camera and said the officers would ‘have to kill me.’ He added that police would have to catch him and said they were ruining his day.

Hours later, U.S. Marshals shot and killed Webber after they say he rammed a police vehicle and then emerged with a weapon as they tried to arrest him.

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Webber had been wanted in a June 3 shooting that happened during a car theft about 25 miles south of Memphis in Hernando, Mississippi.

He shot his victim five times at point blank range after Webber took the car on a test drive and then drove off in the stolen vehicle, according to DeSoto County, Mississippi, District Attorney John Champion.

The victim remains hospitalized but is expected to survive. A second suspect in the June 3 attack remains at large. Police said they believe the second suspect drove Webber to the location where he met the man selling his car, but was not present for the shooting itself.

‘This was a violent felon who did not obviously want to go to jail. And (the marshals) ended up, from my knowledge, doing what they had to do up there, not only to protect themselves but protect other people in the neighborhood,’ Champion said.

‘It’s obvious that he had no appreciation for the value of human life.’

Following the fatal shooting Wednesday night, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Webber had rammed his car into vehicles driven by federal agents at about 7pm.

He was reportedly carrying a weapon when he got out of his vehicle, authorities said. {snip}

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A criminal history for Webber released by the TBI listed two arrests, in April 2017 and April 2018, on charges including weapons possession, drug dealing and driving without a license.

The 2018 charges were not prosecuted, and the 2017 charges were dismissed, court records showed.

‘He wasn’t a bad guy,’ the elder Webber told Reuters of his son. ‘He wasn’t even living long enough to be a bad guy.’

He said his son had sold marijuana but was not a drug dealer.

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