Who was Andrew Brown? Here’s what we know about Black man fatally shot by NC deputy

Tensions were high in a small North Carolina city on Wednesday after a sheriff’s deputy shot and killed a Black man.

Deputies were executing a search warrant Wednesday morning in Elizabeth City when Andrew Brown Jr. was shot, the Pasquotank County sheriff said. He offered few other details about what happened and said the State Bureau of Investigation is taking the lead.

Protesters gathered in the town Wednesday evening as the city council hosted an emotional emergency meeting.

Here’s what we know so far about Brown.

A friend and father

Brown was 42 years old, online records show. He was a father of 10, WAVY reported.

“He wasn’t a violent person,” Daniel Bowser, who said he and Brown were friends for nearly 30 years, told The News & Observer. “He didn’t mess with guns, he didn’t tote no guns.

“I don’t care what they put out there, he didn’t deserve to die.”

A grandson and nephew

Brown’s grandmother, 92-year-old Lydia Brown, told The Associated Press she learned of his death on the news.

“I am upset. Andrew was a good person,” Lydia Brown said. “[The deputy] didn’t have to shoot him like that.”

Clarissa Brown Gibson, his aunt, said she didn’t understand how her nephew’s encounter with deputies cost him his life, the AP reported.

“We want to know if he was served with a warrant, why they shooting over a warrant?”

Brown and Gibson wants answers they say a thorough investigation can bring.

“He had children,” Gibson told CNN. “He cared and loved for them.”

‘Beautiful smile, infectious laugh’

Jadine Hampton told Heavy that Andrew Brown was her cousin. She said she last saw him in October, during a birthday celebration for a family member.

“We exchanged numbers with hopes of him visiting me in Atlanta once the pandemic lifted,” she sad. “He had a beautiful smile, infectious laugh. A great storyteller like a comedian. A wonderful father, who pushed his kids to be honor roll students even though he never finished school.”

#AndrewBrown

Within hours of the shooting, the hashtag #AndrewBrown was being used on Twitter.

Many people noted that Brown’s death came one day after former Minneapolis police officer was convicted of murder in the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man — and also one day after police in Columbus, Ohio, shot and killed a 16-year-old Black girl.