Two North Carolina deputies who were involved in the fatal shooting of Andrew Brown Jr. have returned back to duty, while another is planning to resign on June 30.
According to ABC 11, Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten II announced on Friday (June 4) that Deputies Daniel Meads and Robert Morgan were reinstated to the sheriff’s office after being placed on administrative leave. Meads returned to the office on June 1 and Morgan returned on June 2. Aaron Lewellyn, a third officer who was involved in the deadly shooting, is resigning at the end of the month and will be using his “accrued leave” until then.
On April 21, Brown was fatally shot by police officers in Elizabeth City, North Carolina as he drove away from authorities while they were serving him a search warrant.
His death sparked national outrage after the police department refused to release footage of the shooting to his family and the public. An independent autopsy revealed that Brown was shot five times — four in his right arm and one in the back of his head. Attorneys Ben Crump, Bakari Sellers, Harry Daniels and Chantel Cherry-Lassiter have called for the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct an investigation into his death.
Initially, seven deputies were placed on administrative leave as the State Bureau of Investigation reviewed footage of the shooting. Meads, Morgan and Lewellyn were the only three deputies who used their firearms during the incident. The other four officers were immediately reinstated. In May, District Attorney Andrew Womble announced that no charges would be filed against any of the deputies. He said that the deputies’ excessive use of force was “justified.”
“Mr. Brown’s actions caused three deputies to reasonably believe it was necessary to use deadly force to protect themselves and others,” Womble said. Wooten said that the three deputies will be “disciplined and retrained.”