MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th April, 2021) Virginia police have released body camera footage depicting an officer repeatedly shooting at a Black man after mistaking a cordless house phone for a gun, and a 911 call recording was also released alongside the footage.
Isaiah Brown, 32, was shot around 3:19 a.m. on Wednesday by a policeman responding to a domestic disturbance call, WTOP news broadcaster reported.
Brown was taken to Fredericksburg hospital and his condition is reported to be critical.
According to the 911 call audio recording and footage, both published by local police on YouTube on Saturday, Brown asked the operator to send a police car to his house because his brother would not allow him to enter his mother's room and he could not get into his car. The dispatcher informed Brown that his car was broken down and was towed away.
Brown can then be heard telling his brother to hand him a gun, to which his brother refuses. The operator asked Brown what was going on to what Brown replied: "I'm about to kill my brother."
The dispatcher asked Brown some follow-up questions to make sure he was unarmed. Brown stayed on the line with the dispatcher as he walked out of his house with the cordless phone in hand.
Body camera footage then shows the unnamed police officer who has arrived to the scene yelling at Brown to show his hands and allegedly saying into his radio that Brown has "got a gun to his head."
It is unknown whether the police officer knew Brown was unarmed. Audio picked up by the body camera recorded the officer telling Brown to "drop the gun" and to "stop walking towards [him]".
Since Brown did not abide, the policeman shot at the man at least seven times. He is then heard attempting to aid Brown who fell to the ground.
"The deputy in question made multiple, basic policing errors and violated established protocols. The deputy was situated nearly 50 feet from Isaiah, was never threatened and should not have discharged his weapon," Brown's attorney, David Haynes, said in a statement, as quoted by the news outlet.
Haynes added that the shooting of Brown was "completely avoidable."
The deputy responsible for the shooting has been place on administrative leave and the Virginia State Police are leading an investigation into this case.
Further reports showed that the police officer who shot at Brown was the same deputy that drove Brown home from a gas station an hour prior to the accident, after Brown's car broke down.
