‘The suspect has a gun?’ Belleville police release audio and video of officer-involved shooting

The police call went out over the radio as a domestic disturbance with a “10-32.”

Police were going to an apartment on Pheasantwood Drive in Belleville the night of June 23 at about 10 p.m. to respond to a complaint of a man with a gun. The incident ended when Angelo Brown brandished the gun at police and they shot and killed him.

Belleville police have released in-dash video and radio communications audio from that night. The tapes were released under an Illinois Freedom of Information Act request by the BND. The video does not show the shooting, but the audio provides a timeline of events.

This shooting came a few weeks before two more shootings of blacks males by police rocked the nation. Those shootings, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and St. Paul, Minnesota, spurred protests around the country. One of those protests, on July 7 in Dallas, ended with five police officers being shot and killed in a sniper ambush — the deadliest day for law enforcement since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The call that night came into Belleville Police dispatch of a report of a domestic disturbance at an apartment at 4 Pheasantwood Drive. There were two women and a small child inside the apartment. The suspect was described as a Hispanic male wearing a white T-shirt and loose shorts.

“That suspect has a gun in his hand?” an unidentified officer asked the dispatcher.

“Affirmative,” the dispatcher responded.

Three minutes and 16 seconds after the call came in, an unidentified officer tells the dispatcher that they are in a foot chase. Ten seconds later, an officer cries “Shots fired! Shots fired!” then “Subject down.”

Brown was a national and local leader in the Revolutionary Black Panther Party who was known to the group as General Minister Houdari Juelani. He was also a U.S. Army veteran, father of 13, and college student.

“Male down. Gunshot wound to the head,” an officer tells his dispatcher.

Amidst emergency sirens, police officers asked about an ambulance, then a crime-scene unit. Swansea Police Department called into Belleville’s dispatch, too, offering to help with traffic control.

Twelve minutes after the first call, Belleville police called Illinois State Police to ask for an agent to investigate an “officer-involved shooting.”

Police have said that Brown was killed after he exchanged gunfire with police outside the apartment complex.

Illinois State Police continue their investigation into Brown’s shooting.

The status of the officer or officers who shot Brown was not immediately known.

After Brown’s shooting, Black Panther leader Alli Muhammad said he believed Brown was “assassinated” by the Belleville Police Department. Brown complained that police around the Belleville and St. Louis area were harassing and threatening him while he was carrying out his Black Panther duties, according to Muhammad.

Muhammad stated that the Black Panther mission is “to feed, clothe, shelter, train and defend our people, as well as fight against crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, genocide, terrorism, extremism and violence in our community and abroad.”

Muhammad had said soon after Brown’s shooting that he expected to protest in Belleville and the St. Louis area last weekend, but that was before the shootings in Dallas on Thursday night that left five police officers dead.

On Monday, Illinois State Police were assisting the East St. Louis Police Department investigating another officer-involved shooting. Officers said a 41-year-old man was running around the neighborhood naked, at around 6 a.m., shooting at bystanders and passing cars. When officers arrived at the corner of North 16th Street and Gaty Avenue, the man pointed a gun at them, and two officers from East St. Louis and Washington Park fired at him. He later died at a St. Louis hospital.

Brown was one of three people shot by police on June 23. Deravis Rodgers, 22, was shot and killed by the Atlanta Police Department. Jay Anderson, 20, was shot and killed by the Wauwatosa Police Department in Wisconsin. There were 94 people shot and killed by police in June, according to a Guardian database project titled “The Counted.” In 2016, the database contained 517 people who have been killed by police in the United States.

Also on Monday, the New Life in Christ Church in O’Fallon held a prayer vigil in response to the recent police shootings around the country. More than 100 people gathered to hear inspirational words and pray for peace in our streets.

“The fabric of our country, indeed Old Glory, is being torn apart by fear, racism, ignorance and hatred,” said Bishop Geoffrey V. Dudley Sr., minister at the church at 689 Scott Troy Road. “We have to learn how to live together with all of our differences.”

Stanley Franklin, president of the East St. Louis chapter of the NAACP, said, “To those who wear the badge, we appreciate you. We thank you for the dangerous work you do every single day to keep our streets safe.”

This story was originally published July 12, 2016 at 12:52 PM with the headline "‘The suspect has a gun?’ Belleville police release audio and video of officer-involved shooting."