Two years have passed since her son was killed by police, and Jarmayne Brewer is still waiting for answers.
Elijah Brewer was 25 when he was fatally wounded by police gunfire during a traffic stop in Pittsburgh’s North Side on March 5, 2020. Officers said Brewer, the passenger in a 2002 Lexus, shot at detectives “at least” twice after they pulled the car over in an unmarked GMC Yukon. A police officer sustained leg wounds.
But as Brewer’s death reached its second anniversary on Saturday, the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office has yet to release a conclusive statement on whether officers were justified in killing him.
“As is standard procedure, shortly after the incident that resulted in Mr. Brewer’s death, the agency tasked with investigating the matter informed the public of the pertinent details regarding the incident,” a spokesman for the DA’s office said. “These details included the fact that Mr. Brewer fired two shots from a weapon he was not supposed to possess, significantly wounding a police officer.
“We expect our review to be completed in short order.”
Ms. Brewer, 60, of Mount Oliver, said she has been left in the dark on what happened to her son despite multiple attempts to get more information from investigators.
“I feel like a throwaway, and there’s no followup,” she said in an interview last week.
While the DA’s office declined to explain what has caused the investigation to go on for so long, there are two aspects that likely delayed officials: The absence of body-worn cameras on any of the four detectives who conducted the traffic stop, and the onset of the earliest COVID-19 pandemic restrictions just more than a week after Brewer’s death.
Still, the dearth of information related to Brewer’s killing is unusual in a police shooting, said Mark Loevy-Reyes, a Chicago-based attorney who helped Ms. Brewer obtain the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s autopsy report on her son.
“It seems to me that the information is being really closely guarded, and I’m not sure why that is,” said Mr. Loevy-Reyes, who has handled multiple lawsuits on behalf of families whose relatives were killed by police.
What Ms. Brewer does know is that the same information that was given to the media after her son was killed.
According to a March 6, 2020, briefing by former Allegheny County Police Superintendent Coleman McDonough, four detectives in the GMC Yukon pulled over the Lexus, operated by a person whose identity police have not released. Brewer was in the front passenger seat.
Police at the time declined to disclose the specific reason the car was stopped; Ms. Brewer said she was told by county officials that the car had a broken taillight. Superintendent McDonough described a “personal observation” of the scene that revealed the car had “equipment violations” that “may have constituted” a traffic stop, he said during the press conference two years ago.
Detectives smelled “burnt marijuana” during the stop and asked the driver to exit. The driver complied, but police said Brewer also exited the vehicle and fired at officers.
Police at the time said they were “unable to determine the number of rounds that struck Mr. Brewer, as well as which of the officers’ rounds struck Mr. Brewer.” The county’s autopsy report, provided to the Post-Gazette by Mr. Loevy-Reyes, shows Brewer sustained at least eight gunshot wounds.
Investigators also said they recovered a 9mm handgun from Brewer, and they said confirmation on who shot first was pending further investigation.
“Quite frankly, if indeed Elijah had a 9mm [handgun] on him, as the police alleged, and if indeed he shot an officer, why not release that information?” Mr. Loevy-Reyes said. “I just don’t understand.”
Criminal charges were never filed against the driver of the Lexus, and his identity was never released. Ms. Brewer said she knew him to be an acquaintance of her son’s, someone he was collaborating with on music and helping to get a job following incarceration.
“That’s the kind of person Elijah was,” she said.
Brewer, who lived in Mount Oliver at the time of his death, was an aspiring musician working at the Roots Natural Kitchen restaurant in Oakland. According to court documents, he was placed on probation in 2013 for drug charges and sentenced to prison in 2014 for aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and firearms charges. He spent five years in the penitentiary. Because of his convictions, he was not legally permitted to carry a firearm.
His mother described Brewer as a hard-working creative type who obtained his GED and later attended Community College of Allegheny County briefly to study music and business management. He began rapping at age 12 and, although Ms. Brewer didn’t always approve of his songs’ subject matter, she encouraged him to express himself.
“I really was proud to be his mom,” she said. “And I really enjoyed seeing him grow into the person he was becoming, and I just felt that was cut short.”
What has most frustrated her, she said, is the lack of response from the county as she has tried to learn more about her son’s death.
“I felt disrespected as a person, as if I was the one who was at odds with the police officer,” she said of her correspondence with officials.
While she had questions about the police’s narrative of the event, she said she would accept the results of the DA’s investigation even if it determines the police justifiably killed in self defense.
“The No. 1 one question I want an answer to: Why did they kill my son?” she said.
Mick Stinelli: mstinelli@post-gazette.com; 412-263-1869; and on Twitter: @MickStinelli
First Published: March 5, 2022, 5:27 p.m.