Race Jones
gangster. grace. alchemy
Using previously unseen surveillance video, a documentary challenges the police narrative that Michael Brown committed a strong-armed robbery moments before he was fatally in August 2014 in Ferguson, Mo.
The documentary, “Stranger Fruit” by Jason Pollock, uses the video from the store to assert that Brown’s altercation with store employees was part of a misunderstanding tied to a possible earlier drug transaction.
The documentary debuted Saturday at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.
It uses the new video to show that Brown showed up at Ferguson Market and Liquor about 1:15 a.m. the day he was fatally shot, according to a clip of the documentary included in a story by The New York Times. CNN also broadcast a video clip.
The footage shows Mr. Brown entering the store, Ferguson Market and Liquor, shortly after 1 a.m. on the day he died. He approaches the counter, hands over an item that appears to be a small bag and takes a shopping sack filled with cigarillos. Mr. Brown is shown walking toward the door with the sack, then turning around and handing the cigarillos back across the counter before exiting.
Jason Pollock, a documentary filmmaker who acquired the new tape, says the footage challenges the police narrative that Mr. Brown committed a strong-armed robbery when he returned to the store around noon that day. Instead, Mr. Pollock believes that the new video shows Mr. Brown giving a small bag of marijuana to store employees and receiving cigarillos in return as part of a negotiated deal. Mr. Pollock said Mr. Brown left the cigarillos behind the counter for safekeeping.
“There was some type of exchange, for one thing, for another,” Lesley McSpadden, Mr. Brown’s mother, says in Mr. Pollock’s documentary, “Stranger Fruit,” which premiered Saturday at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Tex., and examines the shooting from the family’s perspective.
But Jay Kanzler, a lawyer for the convenience store and its employees, strongly disputes that version of events, and said the new footage is unrelated to Mr. Brown’s later visit to the store.
“There was no transaction,” Mr. Kanzler said. “There was no understanding. No agreement. Those folks didn’t sell him cigarillos for pot. The reason he gave it back is he was walking out the door with unpaid merchandise and they wanted it back.”
Regardless of what happened at the store in the early-morning hours, the new security footage does not resolve long-simmering questions about Mr. Brown’s encounter with Officer Darren Wilson along a Ferguson street that day. Officer Wilson, who claimed that he feared for his life and had been assaulted by Mr. Brown, was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by a county grand jury and federal civil rights investigators. He resigned from the Police Department.
Mr. Brown’s death and the sometimes violent protests that followed raised broad questions about how police officers treat black people, both in the St. Louis area and across the country, and many remain steadfast in their belief that Mr. Brown was murdered.
Protesters were particularly offended by the Ferguson Police Department’s decision to release the video that showed Mr. Brown shoving the store clerk, perceiving it as part of an effort to defame and demonize the young man. Ms. McSpadden, who also spells her first name as Lezley, questioned why that tape was released publicly while her son’s earlier visit to the store had been kept quiet.
The documentary, “Stranger Fruit” by Jason Pollock, uses the video from the store to assert that Brown’s altercation with store employees was part of a misunderstanding tied to a possible earlier drug transaction.
The documentary debuted Saturday at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.
It uses the new video to show that Brown showed up at Ferguson Market and Liquor about 1:15 a.m. the day he was fatally shot, according to a clip of the documentary included in a story by The New York Times. CNN also broadcast a video clip.
The footage shows Mr. Brown entering the store, Ferguson Market and Liquor, shortly after 1 a.m. on the day he died. He approaches the counter, hands over an item that appears to be a small bag and takes a shopping sack filled with cigarillos. Mr. Brown is shown walking toward the door with the sack, then turning around and handing the cigarillos back across the counter before exiting.
Jason Pollock, a documentary filmmaker who acquired the new tape, says the footage challenges the police narrative that Mr. Brown committed a strong-armed robbery when he returned to the store around noon that day. Instead, Mr. Pollock believes that the new video shows Mr. Brown giving a small bag of marijuana to store employees and receiving cigarillos in return as part of a negotiated deal. Mr. Pollock said Mr. Brown left the cigarillos behind the counter for safekeeping.
“There was some type of exchange, for one thing, for another,” Lesley McSpadden, Mr. Brown’s mother, says in Mr. Pollock’s documentary, “Stranger Fruit,” which premiered Saturday at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Tex., and examines the shooting from the family’s perspective.
But Jay Kanzler, a lawyer for the convenience store and its employees, strongly disputes that version of events, and said the new footage is unrelated to Mr. Brown’s later visit to the store.
“There was no transaction,” Mr. Kanzler said. “There was no understanding. No agreement. Those folks didn’t sell him cigarillos for pot. The reason he gave it back is he was walking out the door with unpaid merchandise and they wanted it back.”
Regardless of what happened at the store in the early-morning hours, the new security footage does not resolve long-simmering questions about Mr. Brown’s encounter with Officer Darren Wilson along a Ferguson street that day. Officer Wilson, who claimed that he feared for his life and had been assaulted by Mr. Brown, was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by a county grand jury and federal civil rights investigators. He resigned from the Police Department.
Mr. Brown’s death and the sometimes violent protests that followed raised broad questions about how police officers treat black people, both in the St. Louis area and across the country, and many remain steadfast in their belief that Mr. Brown was murdered.
Protesters were particularly offended by the Ferguson Police Department’s decision to release the video that showed Mr. Brown shoving the store clerk, perceiving it as part of an effort to defame and demonize the young man. Ms. McSpadden, who also spells her first name as Lezley, questioned why that tape was released publicly while her son’s earlier visit to the store had been kept quiet.
