Instead, he was a drug dealer. Allegedly. Which is bad news for… the cops?
“Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” is a huge lie. But apparently that doesn’t matter. Steve Onusami, ABC News:
When 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, police officers shared a video showing Brown with his hands around a shopkeeper’s neck as he makes off with a carton of cigarillos…
But previously unreleased surveillance video casts doubt on whether Brown robbed the store shortly before he was fatally shot by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.
Jason Pollock, the filmmaker who discovered the video, says the footage shows Brown exchanging drugs for a bag of cigarillos around 1 a.m. on Aug. 9, 2014, about 11 hours before he was killed.
Oh.
Even if this is true, I’m not really sure what difference it’s supposed to make. The previous surveillance video we’ve all seen shows Michael Brown attacking that clerk. And the physical evidence of the shooting corroborates former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson’s account that Brown was going for his gun. So… what does it matter whether Brown was a thief or a drug dealer? Either way, he was a violent guy who met a violent end.
Sorry, but I value physical evidence over the feelings of designated victims. I don’t celebrate this young man’s death, but I find his secular sainthood utterly baffling. He attacked a cop. You don’t have to like the cops, and if they shoot people without cause, they need to be held to account. But if you attack a cop, you greatly increase your chances of getting shot.
Don’t attack cops. Or anybody else. It’s just a good idea in general.
But hey, what do I know? I’m just another racist.