Body-camera footage shows deadly encounter between police officer and Samuel Brown

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office released police body-camera footage showing Samuel “Big Sam” Brown Jr. swatting away a Baltimore County Police officer’s arm twice before the officer punches Brown twice in the face.

Brown, who police said was later found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.26, toppled over, smacking the back of his head on the asphalt.

Brown, 56, who died last week after suffering permanent brain damage from the incident last month, is shown bleeding profusely from the back of his skull in the video.

The body-camera video starts by showing Officer Derek Hadel speaking with Brown, who is sitting inside an SUV at a Woodlawn intersection.

A partial police report provided by the attorney for Brown’s family said Hadel found Brown asleep inside his SUV, which was blocking a travel lane, at 3:20 a.m. Feb. 16. Hadel noticed Brown’s bloodshot eyes and smelled alcohol on his breath, the report said.

The video is initially silent because body cameras buffer before recording sound.

At one point, Hadel appears to slam the SUV door shut, then Brown exits the vehicle and approaches the officer.

Hadel puts his arm out and pushes Brown away. Brown swats Hadel’s arm down.

Then the audio kicks in.

“Get in your car, get in your car, sir, get in your car, sir,” Hadel says as Brown approaches him, saying something incomprehensible.

Hadel again pushes him away, and Brown swings at his arm again.

A split second later, Hadel is shouting as he punches Brown with both hands twice in the face: “Get in your f--ing car, sir, get in your car!”

Brown immediately falls backward onto the road, and the officer mutters to himself while handcuffing an unconscious Brown as blood pools next to him.

“Trying to help you out,” Hadel says.

Portions redacted

There are four instances in the video where the audio is cut off.

While the video continues playing, words appear reading: “A portion of the audio has been redacted at this time to protect the integrity of the investigation.”

Hadel rolls Brown over and handcuffs him. As Brown lies face-down, with an open wound on the back of his head, Hadel calls for a medic and asks for a pressure bandage.

“He’s breathing,” Hadel says.

As more officers arrive, Hadel tells one: “He’s got a good laceration on the back of his head.”

At one point, another officer can be heard radioing someone else that Brown had “assaulted an officer” and appeared to be in his mid-40s.

The Independent Investigations Division — the unit of the attorney general’s office charged with reviewing police-related fatalities in Maryland to decide whether an officer should be prosecuted. — is investigating the deadly encounter.

The unit asks that anyone with information about this incident call 410-576-7070 or email IID@oag.maryland.gov.

Baltimore County Police spokesperson Joy Lepola-Stewart previously said the department is cooperating with the attorney general’s office.

Hadel, a nine-year veteran of the force, has been assigned to administrative duties, Lepola-Stewart said.

Who was ‘Big Sam’?

Brown’s family and friends described the West Baltimore native as a “go-to guy.”

Roberto “DJ Quicksilva” Silva, Brown’s longtime friend and collaborator, ensured that Brown’s prayer cards were printed with the phrase “I’m On It.”

“It’s funny because his nickname was either Big Sam or Unc,” the popular DJ said. “He was everybody’s dad or everybody’s uncle.”

Brown, the father of six children, was known in the community as a caregiver — the kind of guy who, if presented with a problem, responded quickly: “Lemme make a call.”

“He wouldn’t judge you,” Silva said. “Good, bad or indifferent, if he could help you, the answer was yes. If he couldn’t help you, the answer was ‘I got a guy.’”

Brown’s family and friends paid their respects Tuesday to a man they referred to as the “neighborhood philanthropist.”

Hundreds from Baltimore’s Black community showed up to Wylie Funeral Home in Harlem Park to honor Brown’s memory before attending his funeral services at the Masjid Ul Haqq mosque in Upton.

Silva said he’s disgusted by Hadel’s actions, which he attributed to racism, and is demanding accountability from the police department and Baltimore County.

“You have a white cop that pulls over a Black man that’s 6 foot, 3 inches and 200 pounds, and you think, ‘I’m afraid of him,’” Silva said. “This is the notion that you’ve been trained to think.”

According to a copy of the department’s field manual, Baltimore County Police officers must use deescalation techniques to reduce or eliminate the use of force.

“Members should consider whether a lack of compliance is a deliberate attempt to resist or is caused by an inability to comply,” the manual states.

Neither Silva nor any of Brown’s other family members was immediately available to comment following the video’s release.

Billy Murphy, the attorney representing Brown’s family, will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. Thursday outside his downtown Baltimore office.