Lawyers for a driver they say was shot at by a federal agent during a traffic stop are alleging that D.C. police tried to cover up the shooting.
Lawyers for a driver they say was shot at by a federal agent during a traffic stop are alleging that D.C. police tried to cover up the shooting.
Charging documents showed that on Oct. 17 just before 10 p.m., Phillip Brown, 33, was driving a Dodge SUV with dark-tinted windows and missing a front tag in the 4300 block of Benning Road in Northeast, when he was spotted by officers in a marked cruiser.
D.C. police followed the SUV, finally catching up to the driver near the 4200 block of Benning Road. Charging documents said the driver of the SUV switched lanes during that time, doing so several times as police “activated the emergency equipment to affect a traffic stop.”
When the SUV approached stopped traffic, one D.C. police officer told federal officers that Brown, the driver, was going to flee, and the cruiser that had been following the SUV moved out of the way to let the federal agents stop the vehicle.
When the SUV came to a near stop behind another vehicle, a D.C. police officer and a Homeland Security Investigations officer got out of the cruiser and ordered Brown to stop.
Charging documents said Brown revved the engine and started “advancing toward officers that were on foot.” Brown ultimately struck the rear of the other vehicle, police said in their report.
The charging document said Brown “was removed from the vehicle” and arrested.
The initial charging document doesn’t say that the Homeland Security Investigations officer fired a gun at Brown.
However during Brown’s preliminary hearing on the fleeing charge, his lawyers said that a D.C. police officer testified that he was ordered by a superior not to include the shooting in the police report.
Photos released by Brown’s lawyers show two bullet holes in the driver’s side window and one in the driver’s seat.
D.C. police later confirmed to WTOP that the shooting took place and that they are investigating.
The fleeing case against Brown was dismissed when the judge ruled that there was “insufficient evidence” that he tried to flee, his attorneys said in a new release. In addition to leaving out the shooting in the police report, Brown’s attorneys also allege that D.C. police are refusing to provide the body camera footage.
Brown’s lawyers have filed a motion asking for preservation of all communication regarding the case, and all relevant evidence — including body camera footage, ballistic evidence from the scene, and “the jacket worn by Mr. Brown containing the bullet hole through or near the collar.”
In addition, two other lawyers for Brown have requested access to all of the communications and correspondence between the D.C. police department and federal agencies pertaining to the case.
“The MPD covered up the shooting, leaving it out of the police report and refusing to provide Body Worn Camera footage to Brown’s attorneys,” attorney E. Paige White, one of Brown’s attorneys, said in a news release.
White said the case “symbolizes the potentially fatal consequences of MPD’s collaboration with federal agents and demonstrates the immediate need to end the Make D.C. Safe Again initiative.”
This story was first reported by The Washington Post and Washington City Paper.
WTOP is seeking additional comment from the Department of Homeland Security.
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