Evangelicals Gather In Spotsylvania To Express Support For Police

SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, VA — One Church Rappahannock Region, a group of Black and white evangelical Christian churches, together with the Spotsylvania County branch of the NAACP, on Sunday honored Isaiah Brown, the Spotsylvania man shot several times by a sheriff’s deputy, and police agencies in the region, the Free Lance-Star reported.

“We love Isaiah and we love the police department and today we intercede for our community,” Temaki Carr, founder and CEO of Fredericksburg’s Loving the Nations Missions Ministry, told people standing outside the Spotsylvania County government center, according to the news report.

A Spotsylvania County deputy — who apparently mistook a cordless house phone that Brown man was holding for a gun — shot Brown seven times on April 21, according to police reports.

Brown, a 32-year-old Black man, was walking down the street away from his house in Spotsylvania County and was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher when a sheriff's deputy arrived following reports of a "domestic incident," according to a police statement, as well as body camera footage and 911 audio.

David Haynes, an attorney with The Cochran Firm in Washington, D.C., who is representing Brown, released a statement in which he said the deputy was 50 feet from Brown when he shot him and was never threatened.

"The officer mistook a cordless house phone for a gun," Haynes said. "There is no indication that Isaiah did anything other than comply with dispatch's orders and raised his hands with the phone in his hand as instructed."

Organizers held the prayer vigil for Brown and the sheriff's deputy, who has not been named. They wanted people to respect the police as an institution and not hold departments responsible for the actions of individual law enforcement officers.

“We’re all here, basically, praying for our country,” said Mike Wilson, who drove to the event from Stafford County, according to the Free Lance-Star report. “Yes, we are praying for the Brown family and for Isaiah, but we’re also praying for the police, because they’re not all bad. They do a tough job and they need prayer and they need support.”

The shooting remains under investigation by the Virginia State Police. Fredericksburg Commonwealth’s Attorney LaBravia Jenkins, who was assigned as special prosecutor in the case, will review the findings and decide whether charges are warranted.

“We’re here in what symbolizes the birthplace of George Washington,” said Carr, the Free Lance-Star reported. “If we can get it correct here, then perhaps what we do can reverberate around the nation.”