A former high school football player in Virginia was reportedly shot and killed by an off-duty police officer after an altercation in the parking lot of a car wash early Saturday morning.
Paterson Brown Jr., a former standout at James River High School in Midlothian, Va., was 18.
According to WTVR-TV in Richmond, Va., Brown and some friends pulled into the Better Vision car wash and parked behind the officer, who works for the Richmond Police Department and was having his car washed. Witnesses told WTVR that Brown got out of his vehicle and jumped into the front seat of the officer’s vehicle. He then drove the vehicle out of the car wash.
At that point, the off-duty officer reportedly told Brown to get out of the car multiple times. According to the Chesterfield Police Department, which is investigating the shooting, surveillance video shows that the off-duty officer physically struggled with Brown during the confrontation. Brown did not get out of the car, and eventually the policeman pulled out his gun and shot him once.
“During the confrontation, the suspect was shot and he was transported to Chippenham Hospital, where he later died,” a police spokesman said on Monday.
Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting, the spokesman told the New York Daily News.
“(The off-duty officer) didn’t want to do it,” a witness told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “He tried and tried to get him out.”
Brown was not armed during the incident.
