A documentary released over the weekend renewed tensions in Ferguson, Missouri, by claiming the authorities withheld video that would have absolved Michael Brown of a robbery he was accused of committing minutes before being fatally shot by a police officer.
However, a lawyer for the convenience store at the center of the accusations released additional video on Monday that he said disproved the documentary’s assertions.
The chief prosecutor of St Louis County, which includes Ferguson, called the documentary misleading and “pathetic.”
Photo: AFP
Shortly after the shooting on Aug. 9, 2014, the Ferguson police released a video showing Brown taking cigarillos and shoving an employee at Ferguson Market % Liquor. Minutes later, Officer Darren Wilson encountered Brown on a nearby street and shot him during a confrontation. Brown, a black 18-year-old, was unarmed, and his death set off weeks of unrest. There is no known video of the shooting itself.
The documentary, Stranger Fruit, which premiered on Saturday, included previously unreported surveillance video of Brown visiting the convenience store several hours before his death.
The documentarian, Jason Pollock, claimed that the video showed Brown trading marijuana for cigarillos with store employees, then leaving the cigarillos behind for safekeeping.
Brown returned to the store about noon to pick up his merchandise, Pollock said, not to commit a robbery.
However, Jay Kanzler, a lawyer for the store and its employees, disputed the documentary’s claims and said the film had been selectively edited.
He said that no trade had been made, that the employees had not kept the marijuana and that the later episode reported as a robbery was indeed a robbery.
Both Pollock and Kanzler said they believed that the small bag Brown was shown placing on the counter contained marijuana, and both acknowledged an attempt by Brown to barter with it.
However, the two sides disagree on whether a deal was reached.
The latest video showed the clerks taking the cigarillos out of a shopping bag and returning them to the shelf after Brown left the store, which Kanzler said indicated that there was no layaway arrangement.
“What I think the video really shows is that interaction between Michael Brown and especially the clerk working the register was heated,” said Kanzler, who believes that the extended video shows Brown leaving the store with the marijuana.
Pollock’s interpretation of the events resonated with many advocates, who saw the video as evidence of a police cover-up, leading protesters to gather outside the store on Sunday night.
Ferguson Police Chief Delrish Moss said that three people had been arrested and one officer injured and that gunshots had been heard near the protest.
One man was charged with attempting to cause catastrophe and accused of trying to set fire to a police cruiser.
St Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch said investigators had long been aware of the video showing Brown’s first visit to the store.
It was not presented to grand jurors, because it was irrelevant, he said.
His office posted the surveillance footage online on Monday afternoon.
It is very clear that there was no transaction between Brown and the store employees,” said McCulloch, who faced criticism for his handling of the case, in which a grand jury decided not to charge Wilson. “The suggestion that he’s coming back to pick up what he bartered for is just stupid.”
Pollock, who has called for a new criminal investigation of Wilson, defended his documentary and said the authorities had “been caught in a lie.”
He remained steadfast in his assertion that Brown had made a trade for the cigarillos and said the store employees had kept the marijuana.
“The exchange is made. They kept the weed,” Pollock said. “The weed never goes back to him. We see that.”
He has declined to say how he acquired the surveillance video.
He said he had not reached out to the store employees to get their version of events because he believed the footage was self-explanatory.
Kanzler, the store’s lawyer, said the documentary had “reopened old wounds” in Ferguson, where he said his clients had worked to build a good relationship with community members.
“We’ve wasted all of this energy that we should have continued to spend on healing, and now we’ve taken five steps backwards again,” he said.
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