Small county’s big role in war on drugs

When sheriff’s deputies in coastal North Carolina broke department policy by shooting into a fleeing car, killing the driver, they were justified, the district attorney said. The man killed was a “violent felon,” and the officers felt their lives were threatened, he argued.

But when resident T.J. Selsey saw the truck with heavily armed deputies speed past his house in Elizabeth City on April 21, he had one thought: “Lynch mob.”

Andrew Brown Jr. was killed when deputies serving felony warrants and a search warrant surrounded his car as part of a drug sting. When Mr. Brown, who is Black, attempted to escape in his vehicle, the deputies fired 14 shots, killing him when one hit the back of his head. Mr. Brown was unarmed.

The two interpretations of what happened that day point to a fault line that runs through Pasquotank County here and through the nation as a whole. Is America’s war on drugs, now in its 50th year, taking the necessary steps to maintain law and order, or has it warped and overmilitarized policing, with the

Rethinking the war on drugsWhat happened in Elizabeth CityPasquotank portraitA push to “back the blue”