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Daughters speak out after dad allegedly killed by VCU security guard

Posted at 10:11 PM, Jan 18, 2016
and last updated 2016-01-19 07:17:04-05

RICHMOND, Va. -- The trial for a former security guard at the VCU Medical Ambulatory Pharmacy is scheduled to begin Wednesday, and his alleged victim’s daughters said security video will help prove the former guard was guilty. Phillip Whitaker, 64, died from head injuries he suffered after he was allegedly tackled to the ground by security guard George Brown Jr. at the VCU Medical Ambulatory Pharmacy in August 2015.

Brown was charged with involuntary manslaughter.

“I want him to be taken away from his family like he took my dad away from us," Lisa Stanley, Phillip Whitaker’s daughter, said about Brown Jr.

Phillip Whitaker

Phillip Whitaker

Whitaker’s daughters said their dad was walking to the back of the line after his name was called over the loudspeaker when he was tackled.

"We believe the security guard thought he was cutting in line," Stanley said.

Whitaker’s daughters said security video captured the altercation.

Whitaker’s other daughter, Tammy Harris, said could not bring herself to watch the video, but said detectives told her family it would prove the guard did not act in self-defense, and, instead, was the aggressor.

Lisa Stanley and Tammy Harris

Lisa Stanley and Tammy Harris

“We have been advised from day one that he did nothing wrong,” Stanley said.

Still, Stanley and Harris said they were nervous about the outcome of the trial.

“We have very little faith in our judicial system,” Harris said.

Their mother, Karen Whitaker, was killed in November 2013 when she was struck by a tractor-trailer as she left work. The tractor-trailer driver was sentenced to four years in prison.

Phillip and Karen Whitaker

Phillip and Karen Whitaker

A sentence Whitaker’s daughters believed was not tough enough.

“It just seems like a lot of things are backward to us.  You go out there and you murder somebody you walk, but if you go out there and have a petty crime you’re going to spend 10 years locked up,” Harris said.

CBS 6 reporter Shelby Brown reached out to Brown’s family after his arrest, but they did not want to comment.

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