7 deputies placed on leave after North Carolina shooting

Seven deputies in North Carolina have been placed on leave after the fatal police shooting of Andrew Brown Jr. 

The Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to The Hill that seven deputies are on paid administrative leave amid increased scrutiny over this week’s fatal shooting of Brown.

Activists are pressing for the release of police body camera footage of the Wednesday shooting, though the sheriff’s office has said the footage cannot be released without a court order.

Pasquotank Sheriff Thomas S. Wooten said during a video statement Wednesday that Brown was fatally shot during an altercation when deputies attempted to serve an arrest warrant for felony drug charges.

“Our deputies attempted to serve the arrest warrant. They fired the shots. They’ve been put on administrative leave until we know all the facts,” Wooten told reporters, saying that the shots were fired after a car pulled away from the scene.

President Biden has been briefed on the shooting and is expected to leave the decision regarding the body camera footage to local authorities.

“Obviously, the loss of life is a tragedy and obviously we’re thinking of the family members and the community,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at her daily briefing Friday. 

The furor over Brown’s death comes as the nation grapples with a string of police killings of Black Americans. Activists are taking to the streets over the fatal police shooting of Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old Black girl in Columbus, Ohio, and Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, was convicted of murder on Tuesday.