ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. - Earlier today, Pasquotank County District Attorney Andrew Womble announced that he will not bring criminal charges against the officers who shot and killed Andrew Brown Jr. in Elizabeth City, N.C., on April 21, 2021. 

Kristie Puckett-Williams, statewide manager of the ACLU of North Carolina’s Campaign for Smart Justice, issued the following statement after the announcement: 

“It should not come as a surprise that the criminal legal system has upheld the legitimacy of another police murder of a Black person. Communities deserve justice and accountability, but history shows justice for people of color is rare in a system that was built upon slavery and has been modified over time to control and limit the lives of those who are not white.

“The decision not to bring charges against those who killed Andrew Brown Jr. is a sign that the system is working as it was designed to. These cases of state-sanctioned murder are not anomalies. They are business as usual. Until we have radically changed the many ways the criminal legal system harms and kills Black and Brown people, justice will continue to elude its victims.”