Lawyer: Witness contradicts police in fatal shooting
A witness statement provided to Philadelphia detectives after the shooting death of Brandon Tate-Brown in December contradicts police claims that he was pulled over because the lights on his car were out, according to a lawyer for Tate-Brown's mother.
A witness statement provided to Philadelphia detectives after the shooting death of Brandon Tate-Brown in December contradicts police claims that he was pulled over because the lights on his car were out, according to a lawyer for Tate-Brown's mother.
The lawyer, Brian Mildenberg, said a witness told investigators that the officer who stopped Tate-Brown's car on Dec. 15 told him he did so because it matched "the description of a vehicle involved in an earlier incident."
According to Mildenberg, the witness was driving past at the time and pulled over and got out of his car to see what was happening. He then spoke with an officer after the fatal shot.
Mildenberg and Tanya Dickerson, the slain man's mother, have raised another point about the stop. They said video taken around the time of the arrest made it appear Tate-Brown's car lights were on.
"Discrepancies" in police accounts "support a claim that Brandon was pulled over as a result of inappropriate profiling," Mildenberg said in a statement Sunday night released after a review of police investigative documents. "He was a young African American male driving a brand-new luxury vehicle."
Tate-Brown, 25, was killed after police pulled over his 2014 Dodge Charger in Frankford. Police say an officer fatally shot him in a struggle after Tate-Brown began reaching for a gun in the center console of the car.
Lt. John Stanford, a spokesman for the department, said Mildenberg was "throwing pieces" of the police investigation at the news media and providing a distorted picture.
"This department had conducted a thorough investigation from the onset, and there is no 'new' or 'recently discovered' info," he said.
Questioning the police rationale for asking Tate-Brown to get out of the car, Mildenberg said Tate-Brown told officers he worked at Hertz, the car-rental agency, and had its permission to drive the car.
Police, however, determined the car was registered to the Dollar rental car agency, and, "because of this alleged inconsistency," asked Tate-Brown to get out of the car, Mildenberg said.
The officers apparently hadn't realized Dollar is part of Hertz, according to Mildenberg.
Mildenberg also said police claims that Tate-Brown was reaching for a gun may have been prompted by Tate-Brown's putting away his mobile phone.
The medical examiner's toxicology report showed no evidence of drugs in Tate-Brown's system, Mildenberg said Sunday.
The report did find "blunt impact wounds" to Tate-Brown's face, in addition to the gunshot wound that killed him, Mildenberg said.
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