Shooting Victim Dies; NAACP Raps Police
The Knickerbocker News, Albany, New York
William Brown, 25-year-old Negro shot down by two police officers in the South End Friday night, died at 4:10 today at Albany Hospital.
The shooting was called “unjustified” by the president of the Albany Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who said a delegation from his group plan to discuss the case with Police Chief Tuffey.
The chapter president, the Rev. louis C. Brewer of Union Baptist Church, 90 Franklin St., made his statement last night as he visited the Herkimer-Franklin St. section to talk to Negro residents about the shooting. After learning of Brown’s death this morning, he said he had nothing to add for the present.
Justified, Dean Says
Chief Tuffey is on vacation. Today at police headquarters, Acting Chief Anthony J. Dean said: “ The officers were justified in shooting Brown in performance of their duty.”
Police Commissioner James A. Kirwin said today: “ Our investigation showed one officer, the one off-duty, was knocked down and that Brown had threatened the life of another man and the action the officers took was completely justified.”
South End Aroused
The shooting in the streets in mid-evening aroused the South End. Residents protested the lives of onlookers were endangered. A patron in a grill at Green and Herkimer Sts.
Said a bullet missed him by a foot.
The two police officers. Patrolman Melvin Weaver and John Sheldon, said they shot Brown because he fled when they sought to question him about a complaint that he had threatened a Negro companion Leamon Grady, with a knife.
Police said the officers reported they had seized Brown and were putting handcuffs on him when he knocked one of them down and fled.
Onlookers said Brown shouted, “ You’ll have to kill me running,” as he fled from their questioning. Acting Police Chief Anthony Dean said Brown and Grady had visited several bars. Then, Grady said Brown had forced him to drive him back from the Arbor Hill section to the South end and had threatened to kill him.
Shot 3 Times
After Brown left Grady’s car, Grady notified the two policemen, who came upon Brown in Green St.. As Brown fled, police said, they followed him through several streets and finally as he did not heed their shouts to stop, fired at him. Brown collapsed at Herkimer and Franklin Sts., with three bullet wounds in the abdomen, thigh and left leg, and was taken to Albany Hospital.
Mr. Brewer, who said the shooting had endangered the “lives of innocent people” and worsened “racial tensions” in the South End, plans to visit Chief Tuffey with othere NAACP leaders when the chief returns from vacation.
He said he wanted to learn why Patrolman Weaver, an off-duty police officer, was at the scene, and where the knife is which police said Brown was carrying.
No Censure Planned
Police authorities have said no censure was planned against the two young patrolmen who understood Brown had threatened to kill a man and didn’t take chances with him.
Dean had said charges of first degree assault, on complaint of the patrolmen, were to have been made against Brown.
Coroner John Kean said Brown died of abdominal hemorrhages caused by gunshot wounds. He is withholding a verdict.