The father of Banko Brown, the man killed by a security guard in a San Francisco Walgreens last month, spoke out Wednesday about his thoughts about who’s to blame for his son’s death.
Banko, 24, was fatally shot by a security guard at Walgreens in San Francisco.
“Man, I’m so hurt. Like I can’t even like express like that feeling, just to even know my baby is gone,” said Terry Brown about the death of his oldest child. “A kind person. Hard worker. A genuine person and a loving person. A caring person and an activist.”
He recalls receiving the phone call of the tragedy the evening of April 27.
“It was like unbearable,” Terry said. “I didn’t believe it.”
But he had to believe it, when the coroner told him what Banko had said, as he lay dying.
“‘Call my dad,’ and he gave him my number. That’s how they knew it was my child,” Terry said.
As for the video of the shooting released to the public by District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, Terry hasn’t seen it.
“I can’t look at that. As a father, I can't look at that. That's like you just feel so helpless to even look at something like that, knowing when you can’t protect your child,” he said.
Even without seeing the video, Terry does not hesitate in saying who he thinks is to blame for the killing.
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“The guard,” he said. “You can’t hold nobody else responsible, but the guard and Walgreens for hiring him and letting him do that stuff to civilians.”
Jenkins said security guard Michael Anthony’s motive was self defense. Anthony told investigators Banko repeatedly told him he had a knife, though none was found. Banko has his own thoughts about why his transgender son was killed.
“I think it’s because of the gender and what my son represented,” said Terry. “Why else would you beat a person like that that is not armed? or not carrying no gun – no gun – no weapon – no nothing! And then the way I heard he shot him - that’s like a lynching – a modern day lynching. For stealing! ‘I'm going to beat you and then I’m going to kill you.' That’s how I look at it.”
As far as the DA’s decision not to file criminal charges.
“You see the camera, no manslaughter. No nothing. No assault with a deadly weapon. No nothing. It don’t make no sense to me. It’s cold murder and they’re letting him get away with it," Terry said.
Brown family attorney John Burris was in front of the Walgreens on Market Street Wednesday reenacting for noted civil rights attorney Ben Crump what happened the evening of the killing.
“The blood of Banko Brown is on the hands of the executives at Walgreens in Dearborn, Illinois," Crump said.
