How to End Police Shooting Deaths of Black Men: Legalize Crime

The attorneys for the family of Andrew Brown might as well come out and say that Brown should never have been shot by police because crime ought to be legalized.

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During an interview Wednesday on NPR, Brown family attorney Wayne Kendall disputed the district attorney’s assessment earlier in the week that the police shooting of Brown was justified because Brown had put police officers’ lives in danger when he attempted to evade arrest in his vehicle.

“He said that the victim, Mr. Brown, was using the vehicle in an offensive manner,” Kendall said. “And I did not see that. I saw him attempting to escape, and the fact that he was shot in the back of the head indicates that the shots were coming from his rear as he was attempting to leave the scene.”

During a press conference on Tuesday, Andrew Womble, the district attorney, made public police body camera footage of the attempted arrest of Brown, who was wanted for the distribution of drugs, including cocaine and fentanyl-laced heroin. {snip}

The video showed several police officers in a pickup truck driving to Brown’s home, where they found him inside his car. They surrounded the vehicle while telling him to exit, but Brown backed the car up then drove forward in an attempt to flee, apparently striking one of the officers with the right front of the car. As Brown peeled away, police fired multiple shots, which ultimately killed him.

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Notorious race hustler Ben Crump, who is also representing the Brown family, has similarly said that the use of lethal force was unwarranted because “the car was moving away from the officers.”

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