By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Staff Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com
The family of Samuel “Big Sam” Brown, a Black man who died days after an encounter with the Baltimore County Police Department, responded on March 5 to newly released body camera footage of the incident.
The press conference was held at the Murphy, Falcon and Murphy office in downtown Baltimore, where the family appeared alongside their attorney, William H. “Billy” Murphy Jr.
The officer involved in the Feb. 16 incident has been identified as Derek Hadel, a nine-year veteran of the Baltimore County Police Department.
“Justice requires that Officer Hadel be fired, prosecuted and sued,” said Murphy.
Murphy described what Hadel’s body camera footage showed.
“You can see that Officer Hadel, instead of deescalating the situation as required by Baltimore County Police Department policy, chose to escalate the situation illegally by sucker-punching Big Sam in his face,” he said. “You can see him do it suddenly, with excessive and brutal force that was so strong that it broke bones in Big Sam’s face and caused Big Sam to hit the pavement so hard that it fractured his skull. That resulted in his death a few days later.”
Murphy insisted that in the video it is clear that Brown was defenseless.
“At the time of the attack, Big Sam was obviously drunk,” said Murphy. “He was defenseless, because he was standing still with his arms at his side when he got hit. His hands were empty, he had no weapon, and you can see that Officer Hadel’s violent attack was completely unnecessary, inexcusable and in fact, criminal.”
Photo Credit: Photo courtesy of QuickSilvaMedia
The Brown family stood behind Murphy, holding hands and supporting one another as he spoke.
Murphy also framed the case as part of a broader pattern involving fatal encounters between Black Americans and police.
“Yet again, another Black man in his prime is killed by the police without any excuse or justification,” he said.
According to the 2025 Police Violence Report by Mapping Police Violence, Black people are nearly three times more likely to be killed by police than White people and are also more likely to be unarmed during fatal encounters.
Roberto “D.J. QuickSilva” Silva, a close friend of Brown, said he would rather the police had arrested Brown instead of escalating the situation by hitting him.
“He would be alive today had he been arrested,” said Silva.
Brown’s 29-year-old daughter, Deja Brown, described her father as a devoted parent to her and her five siblings.
“He was Big Sam to everybody else, but he was just Dad to us,” she said with tears in her eyes. “It’s wrong. It’s devastating to all of us. He was loving, he was caring, he was whatever we needed him to be. My family is just praying that justice be served.”
Brown said her father took pride in his children.
“He always bragged about us,” she said. “He always wanted us to be different.”