Names Of Officers Who Murdered Andrew Brown Jr. Has Been Released

The names of the police officers responsible for the murder of Andrew Brown Jr. have been revealed.

Brown was killed on April 21st in Elizabeth City, North Carolina when seven officers arrived at Brown’s home to serve arrest warrants for drug charges. The body camera footage shows the officers faces blurred out as they fired at Brown, who was attempting to drive away. According to the autopsy findings, the man was shot five times, including once in the back of his head. His family has called his murder an “execution.”

Protests have erupted since Brown’s death, with many demanding that the names of the officers responsible be revealed to the public. On Thursday, Pasquotank County, N.C. Sheriff Tommy Wooten released their identities: Investigator Daniel Meads, Deputy Sheriff II Robert Morgan, Cpl. Aaron Lewellyn, Lt. Steven Judd, Sgt. Michael Swindell, Sgt. Kenneth Bishop and Sgt. Joel Lunsford.

Meads, Morgan, and Lewellyn are currently on administrative leave. Judd, Swindell, Bishop, and Lunsford remain on active duty, with Wooten defending the four officers who are still working by saying, “it’s obvious” they “never fired their weapons and deserve to be reinstated to active duty.”

Wooten also confirmed that three officers who fired at Brown would remain on administrative leave “pending completion of the internal investigation and/or the criminal investigation being conducted by the State Bureau of Investigation.”

Chantel Cherry-Lassiter, the attorney representing the Brown family, says that the man was fleeing out of fear for his life because the officers began firing at him from the “first second of the video.” He ultimately had to reverse his car to escape the gunfire before crashing into a tree.

The FBI has launched a civil rights probe. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper is also calling for a special prosecutor to take up the case.