
{"id":7175,"date":"2009-09-24T11:15:49","date_gmt":"2009-09-24T19:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=7175"},"modified":"2009-09-24T12:51:52","modified_gmt":"2009-09-24T20:51:52","slug":"the-wrong-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/09\/24\/the-wrong-man\/","title":{"rendered":"The wrong man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Rich Fowler<br \/>\nStaff Writer<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nHe couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let it go.<\/p>\n<p>When Charles Brown was stopped, handcuffed, searched and held for more than 40 minutes by Chapel Hill police in a case of mistaken identity, he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let it slide. The town manager\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office is investigating the matter, while Brown and the local NAACP await a response.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>According to a complaint from Brown filed with the police department, the incident started at around 11:35 p.m. on June 1, while he was walking home down West Rosemary Street near Breadmen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. Chapel Hill Police Officer David Funk drove past in his cruiser, and asked him to stop. Brown said he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t realize Funk was talking to him. Funk asked him to stop a second time. <\/p>\n<p>Brown said he asked, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stop for what? What did I do?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>According to Brown, Funk replied, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You better stop,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d while putting his hand on his weapon. Then he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You are under arrest, Mr. Fearrington.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d As he handcuffed Brown, he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You have warrants.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Brown asked, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Are you sure you want to do this? My name is not Mr. Fearrington.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nBrown said Funk said nothing as he pushed him against the trunk of the cruiser and searched him. Throughout the time Brown was held, as many as six police officers were present.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I told them what I was going to do,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Brown said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcOK, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going down tomorrow and filing a complaint, because this is not right.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have took two minutes for them to say, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcOK, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not Mr. Fearrington, where\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s your ID?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Brown said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My ID was in my pocket. Pull my ID out, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcOkay sir, you can go home.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 None of that happened.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>According to a tape recording given to Brown by Chapel Hill Police Chief Brian Curran, at 12:14 a.m. a Chapel Hill police officer called the ID center and had Brown\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name checked in several criminal databases, 30 minutes after they knew they had the wrong man.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Still a little disgusted about it, you know,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Brown said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have happened like it happened. It should have just been like 1, 2, 3, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m home and in bed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p> \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t heard anything. Guess we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still waiting. Maybe they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still investigating, I guess. It shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take that long to investigate before they come up with a decision.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There is no update at this time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Catherine Lazorko, public information officer for the Town of Chapel Hill. It is an internal matter being taken very seriously, and as soon as there is something public to announce the mayor and council will announce that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Al McSurely, a local attorney who works with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The NAACP\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s position is that the ball is in their court, and that the letter [the town] sent us was more or less saying they had gotten [the complaint], they were looking at it, and they would get back.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>McSurely expects to hear from the town this week.<\/p>\n<p>This incident is likely to renew calls for a police department citizen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s review board. The Town of Chapel Hill asked the state legislature for the power to create such a board, but the bill died in the General Assembly this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Rich Fowler Staff Writer He couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let it go. When Charles Brown was stopped, handcuffed, searched and held for more than 40 minutes by Chapel Hill police in a case of mistaken identity, he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let it slide. The town manager\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office is investigating the matter, while Brown and the local NAACP await a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7175"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7177,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7175\/revisions\/7177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}