Calif. Woman Calls 911 on Abusive Boyfriend Before He Fatally Shoots Her in Front of Police
Video footage released by Sacramento authorities shows the moment a 23-year-old woman was “executed” by her boyfriend as deputies responded to the scene.
On Oct. 27, Chanell Brown was fatally shot by her abusive boyfriend, Earnest Easterling, after an argument outside a home. Before her death, Brown had called authorities, who arrived at the scene during the altercation, the Sacramento Bee reports.
Security footage released by the Sacramento Sheriff’s Office shows Brown’s final moments as she tries to protect others from Easterling, who was wielding a gun.
“You got the police called on me, I didn’t do (expletive),” Easterling can be heard saying in the video.
“Lock your door, lock it,” Brown tells someone out of frame.
The video then shows deputies arriving at the scene. As Brown cooperates with responding officers, she begins to walk out of frame, which is when Easterling can be seen running toward her and firing at point blank range. Within seconds, Easterling is shot by the deputies.
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“That video speaks a thousand words,” Sacramento County Sheriff Sergeant Tess Deterding said in a statement released with the video. “If you watch it, everything unfolds in a split second.”
On Wednesday, Brown’s family held a a press conference, KCRA reports. They said Easterling was the 23-year-old’s first boyfriend and was abusive. They called her final moments “angelic.”
“Everything about her was an angel, she helped you,” Veronica Brown said of her daughter. “She saved lives, the night she died she saved lives, she saved other people, she sacrificed her own life. That’s what really happened. She sacrificed herself.”
Brown’s sister Kevonna said she had served in the military with Easterling before he began dating Chanell.
“I served with this man. I thought he would protect her, not hurt her,” she said. “This was my sister’s first boyfriend, her first boyfriend. You don’t always get a second chance.”
But the family had felt something was wrong while the pair were dating.
“She had distanced herself from family,” Kevonna said. “She moved away.”
The family hoped the press conference would help other victims of domestic violence seek help.
“Our goal was to bring awareness to the situation, moving forward, you know, ’cause that’s something as a family, that should be our mission to do for her,” Keith Brown, the victim’s brother, said.
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
