Who is Brent Hall? Medical examiner who did Andrew Brown Jr's private autopsy had his license suspended before
ELIZABETH CITY, NORTH CAROLINA: On April 21, 2021, Andrew Brown Jr, a 42-year-old Black man, was fatally shot in the head by police officers. A private autopsy, paid for by his family, reportedly showed that he was hit by five bullets and killed by a shot to the head. However, questions have now been raised about the medical examiner who conducted this private autopsy.
As per a report in the Star Tribune, North Carolina-based pathologist Dr Brent Hall, who examined the body in the private autopsy, noted a wound to the back of Brown's head from an undetermined distance that penetrated his skull and brain. He said there was no exit wound. Two shots to Brown's right arm penetrated the skin. Two others shots to the arm grazed him.
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“More investigation is necessary into the three deputies who did fire their weapons and they will remain on administrative leave pending completion of the internal investigation and/or the criminal investigation being conducted by the State Bureau of Investigation,” Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten had said about the incident that took Andrew Brown Jr's life. The three officers, Investigator Daniel Meads, Deputy Sheriff II Robert Morgan, and Corporal Aaron Lewellyn, who allegedly shot him, are the ones on administrative leave. Around 8:30 am on April 21, the deputies with the Pasquotank Sheriff’s Office, dressed in tactical gear, drove down a residential street and arrived at a home in Elizabeth City. Moments later, several shots were fired at Brown Jr.
The family had Dr Hall conduct the private autopsy on Brown Jr's body and his findings are being used in the trial. However, The Daily Caller, a right-wing news and opinion website, reported that Hall was charged in 2010 and 2018 with driving under the influence of alcohol. The report also said that his medical license was suspended after he acknowledged that he struggled with alcohol dependence.
Hall was arrested on February 11, 2018, after police found his 2015 Toyota Land Cruiser in the intersection of U.S. 421 and N.C.105 Extension. Afterward, he was charged with DWI, possession of an open container of alcohol in a vehicle, resisting/obstruct/delay an officer, carrying a firearm after consuming an impairing substance, and offering bribes. As per ABC News, on June 17, 2013, Hall had resigned from his state-appointed post as the North Carolina county medical examiner.
Dr Hall has also been accused of not preventing a death. Reportedly, the North Carolina Medical Examiner's office learned on June 1, 2013, that carbon monoxide might have killed an elderly woman Shirley Jenkins in her Boone hotel room. The state toxicology lab completed tests that showed Shirley Jenkins died of carbon monoxide poisoning. But these results were not made public.
A week later, Jeffrey Williams died in the same room on June 8, and his mother was hospitalized. It was only on June 10 that the police department issued a statement that said the state Medical Examiner had found lethal levels of carbon monoxide in Shirley Jenkins' blood. Williams’ parents blamed Hall for the death. “A death like this is entirely preventable if not for the errors of numerous people involved in this case,” their attorney had said.