HERTFORD, N.C. — After a week and a half of shouting in the streets over the police shooting of Andrew Brown Jr., the quieter, more private grieving formally began on Sunday with the public viewing of his body at a funeral home in Hertford.
A slow stream of family, friends and frustrated neighbors filed into the parlor of Horton’s Funeral Home to sign the guest register and stand for a few seconds — or minutes — by Brown’s open casket beginning at 9 a.m.
Immediate family was not at the viewing, but planned to be at what is expected to be a much more heavily attended event at the Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City beginning Sunday afternoon. An invitation-only funeral is scheduled for noon Monday at Fountain of Life Church in Elizabeth City. The service will be streamed live by Horton’s Funeral Home.
Brown, 42, was shot and killed by officers of the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Office on April 21 as they attempted to serve a warrant on drug charges. Officials have said the shooting was justified, but protesters have marched every evening since the shooting to say it was unnecessary and demonstrates a continuing use of excessive force by police against Black people.
On Saturday, protesters in Elizabeth City and Durham called for authorities to release all police video showing what happened the morning deputies killed Brown. A state Superior Court judge on Wednesday turned down media requests to make the video public, though he said more of it could be made available to immediate family members for viewing.
Terrell Green, a cousin of Brown’s who said he grew up around him in Elizabeth City, was among the first to pay his respects Sunday morning.
He stood briefly by Brown’s casket, glanced at a video tribute of him playing on a loop on a wall-mounted TV, and stepped back outside. The video, set to a contemporary gospel song, was a slideshow of photographs from Brown’s life, now largely overshadowed by the circumstances of his death. Standing with his grandmother. Hugging his kids.
Green said he was with Brown and other family members into the early morning hours of April 21, playing cards and hanging out. A few hours later, Brown was dead. An independent pathologist hired by the family has said he was struck in the arm by four bullets and died as a result of a shot to the head from behind.
Green said he has been at the nightly protests, where marchers call for the release of all the video captured by officers’ body cameras and vehicle dash cameras when deputies swarmed Brown in his car outside his house that Wednesday morning.
“I just feel like they’re trying to hide something,” Green said. “They declare a state of emergency, bring in all these officers from all over the place, set a curfew. We haven’t even broken a glass bottle. We just want the truth.”
