New video shows that Michael Brown — the unarmed black teen whose 2014 shooting death at the hands of police sparked violent protests in Ferguson, MO — may not have committed the convenience store robbery alleged prior to his fatal police encounter.
via NY Post:
A documentary filmmaker has released never-before-seen security camera footage that appears to show Brown making a drug deal with store clerks in exchange for the cigarillos he was accused of stealing just hours later, the New York Times reported.
Police officer Darren Wilson shot the 18-year-old Brown while trying to arrest Brown after the noon robbery on Aug. 9.
But new footage included in filmmaker Jason Pollack’s documentary “Stranger Fruit” appears to show Brown trade a baggie of marijuana for boxes of cigarillos at 1 a.m. that day — 11 hours before the robbery.
He begins to leave with the smokes, then turns around and hands them to a clerk, who can be seen stashing them behind the counter, footage shows.
The filmmaker and Brown’s mother Lezley McSpadden believe the youth got into an argument with clerks when he came later to pick up the cigarillos and that police released selective video — such as a clip showing Brown shove a clerk — to make him look like a cold-blooded thug.
“They destroyed Michael’s character with the tape, and they didn’t show us what actually happened,” Pollock told the Times. “So this shows their intention to make him look bad. And shows suppression of evidence.”
“What you’re going to see on this video is what they didn’t show us happened, that clarifies that there was an understanding,” McSpadden reportedly says in the documentary.
St. Louis County police officials told the Times that they deemed the newly released footage irrelevant, and an attorney for the convenience store told the paper that there was no arrangement between Brown and clerks.
Keep in mind that Darren Wilson knew nothing of the alleged robbery at the time he opened fire on Mike Brown. Furthermore, why was this footage ‘hidden’ from the public until now? It makes you wonder what else is missing from the narrative.
