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Mother of Brandon Tate-Brown says she'll keep fighting

A day after she filed a civil-rights suit against the Philadelphia Police Department, the mother of Brandon Tate-Brown said she would continue to fight for the evidence in her son's death to be released to the public.

Tanya Brown-Dickerson, mother of Brandon Tate-Brown, turns to hand her purse during a news conference Wednesday, April 29, at Dilworth Park. (ALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ/Staff Photographer)
Tanya Brown-Dickerson, mother of Brandon Tate-Brown, turns to hand her purse during a news conference Wednesday, April 29, at Dilworth Park. (ALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ/Staff Photographer)Read more

A day after she filed a civil-rights suit against the Philadelphia Police Department, the mother of Brandon Tate-Brown said she would continue to fight for the evidence in her son's death to be released to the public.

"I want the pain to stop, but I can't stop fighting," Tanya Brown-Dickerson said Wednesday at a news conference outside City Hall.

Tate-Brown, 26, was fatally shot by 15th District officers during a car stop early Dec. 15 in Mayfair. Police have said he was reaching for a gun in the front seat of his car when he was killed, an account that Brown-Dickerson and her attorney have long disputed.

Tate-Brown's death sparked protests in Philadelphia that echoed national outrage in cities around the country over police-involved deaths of African Americans. Last month, District Attorney Seth Williams declined to press charges against the officers involved in Tate-Brown's death, citing witness accounts, video footage, physical evidence, and DNA testing that backed up the officers' account.

Brown-Dickerson's suit disputes those findings. The suit, filed in Common Pleas Court by attorney Brian Mildenberg, says that the police officers involved in the case lack credibility and that Tate-Brown's fatal head wound was not consistent with being shot while reaching into his car for a gun, as police have said. Furthermore, Brown-Dickerson does not believe her son had a gun in the car.

Philadelphia police did not immediately return a request for comment.

The filing also includes a proposed class-action suit on behalf of anyone in Philadelphia who has come into contact with Philadelphia police, or may, in situations where "physicality, use of force, or discharge of firearms is involved."

Mildenberg cited the U.S. Department of Justice's recent report on police use of force in Philadelphia - which contained about 91 recommendations for policy changes - and said the Police Department should be required by court order to institute those changes.

"Only a judge can make an order that people have to follow," he said.

The Rev. Mark Tyler of the interfaith group POWER - Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild - tied Tate-Brown's death to other recent high-profile police-involved killings. He called it part of an "American narrative suggesting that black lives don't matter."

Tyler, who participated in the news conference, said he supported Tate-Brown's family, and called for better police oversight and a more empowered Police Advisory Commission, the civilian oversight group.

As he spoke, a young African American man paced behind the row of reporters, speaking through a bullhorn to the office workers eating lunch at Dilworth Park. He hadn't come for the news conference, but Tyler paused to listen anyway. He said the young man's sentiments echoed his own.

"We are sick of the media portraying us as animals," the man with the bullhorn yelled. "Our lives matter."

215-854-2961 @aubreyjwhelan