DALLAS — Albert Brown played the drums because his older brother did.
“The first time I remember Albert picking up sticks, we didn't have no sticks,” said his brother, Andrew Brown. “He was my favorite drummer.”
So Albert and Andrew played on pots and pans with spatulas.
We talked to Andrew as he and his mother watched a video of his brother tearing it up on the drums. Albert had skills.
He’ll never play again, however.
Albert is now buried with a set of new drum sticks.
He was Dallas’ 97th murder victim out of the 108 officially recorded to date. Murders are up about 21 percent through Wednesday.
In the early morning hours of July 14, a knock at the door would come at his mother’s Red Oak home. It was two detectives.
“I thought they were going to tell me Albert's in jail,” says his mother, Endy Brown, a DART supervisor. "That would not be a surprise.”
Albert wasn't in jail. Her 30-year-old son was dead.
Police say he was shot in the head on July 14 by J.T. Williams, a friend who police say confessed to his killing. Authorities believe Albert put down Williams’ girlfriend, who was in the backseat. They think Williams got mad, pulled the gun and shot Albert.
Albert was shoved out of a car and left in a parking lot on West Kiest Boulevard in Oak Cliff. Williams was soon captured in Louisiana.
Just a stupid argument and Albert was dead.
Albert’s death was a long time in coming.
He was one of four children. When he was seven, the family moved from McKinney to Oak Cliff to attend a Full Gospel Holy Temple church. He grew up in the church and played drums in the church choir, just like Andrew.
His three siblings have gone on to have good jobs and careers.
But Albert was drawn to the streets and to the lifestyle. Albert took on the street name "Slimm” in his teens.
“He said, ‘Nah, that's my new name, S-L-I-M-M,” Andrew said. “I said, ‘Boy please, your name is Albert Brown.”
“Slimm” became almost like an alter ego. It was Albert’s street persona.
“Slimm you couldn’t tell anything,” his brother said. “You couldn’t tell him anything.”
His mother added, “Albert makes a little sense when you talk to him, but I haven’t seen Albert in a long time. Now Slim, in less than 10 minutes, he’d make me upset.”
Drumming was Albert’s first and last love. It’s what he lived to do.
“I’d always tell him, ‘Albert you need to get a real job. You need to be stable. You have children,’” Endy Brown said. “But he always thought about the drumming. The music. He was going to make it big in the music business.”
For years, Endy prayed her son would straighten out.
“I just basically put Albert in the hands of the Lord because you can only talk to your children so much and they have to make their own decisions,” his mother said. “Of course, Albert made his decisions. Sadly, it turned out bad but I was always concerned about Albert.”
She believes Albert loved the Lord. He just wasn’t willing to walk the straight and narrow. She’ said God had been preparing her for the day she would lose Albert.
“If it had been Andrew or my other son, I would have been shocked, but I was not with Albert,” she said.
Now she's raising his four kids, two boys and two girls. The oldest is 10. The youngest is six.
“The children knew their father loved them,” Endy says.
Endy's Christian faith gives her strength to forgive the man accused of killing her son.
“I am a witness that God can take the pain out,” she said, her ears filling with tears. “He'll take the pain out of the hurt, so I don't hate this man. I just know that if he was just sorry for what he did, if he'll say, ‘I'm sorry; I was wrong,' and ask God to forgive him that'll give me peace. Tha'll give me my great peace. You see, I'm Ok until people start talking about this."
Andrew bought his brother his final set of drum sticks. They were buried with him.
He last saw his brother on Father’s Day. He said he told Albert he loved him and they talked about how they could get together to practice. Andrew gave up the drums years ago and now plays the bass guitar.
“He played in bad areas and I wasn’t down for that,” Andrew said. “I told him if you find some better areas where we can play, we can play together.”
Several years ago, Albert was robbed. He was set up by a woman who pretended she was going out on a date with him. When she got in the car, three men appeared with guns. They pulled Albert out of the car and put him on his knees. Albert jumped out and fled as the bullets whizzed by him.
“He ran for his life,” his mother said.
After he died, the family found out he had been cutting the hair of one of the men who robbed him.
“He forgave him,” his mother said.
Last week, Andrew and his mother picked up a temporary marker at Giles Monument Co. to put on Albert’s grave.
“It's very sturdy,” Andrew said, looking at the temporary marker. "It don't' even seen real that I'm holding this. I don't want to never hold another one of these again for my family members.”
Albert is buried in Red Oak Cemetery.
He’s in plot 63. His mother’s plot is next to him.
His mother said she drives down the highway by the cemetery all the time.
“Once I look over here to the side, I can always see where my son is, Albert,” she said. “His children when they come by, they'll say, ‘Well, daddy's over there.’”
“Can't nobody mess with him over here,” Andrew said.
“No more me fussing at him,” Endy responded.
The permanent marker will go in once the ground settles. It’ll have a set of drum sticks on it.
“I'll come check on him every now and then to make sure you're looking good over here,” Andrew said, toughing the dirt covering his brother’s grave. “I ain't gonna forget you, buddy.”
Albert chose his own path.
Now, their grandmother will do what she can to keep her grandchildren on the straight and narrow.
“They’re my responsibility now, so hopefully they turn out to be good people,” she said. "I do miss my son, but you know I got his four children and every day I see those kids, I see Albert. So actually in a sense, I don't miss Albert cause I still have four Alberts running around. Four of them.”