Two years after the slaying of Ferguson, MI teen Mike Brown and deeming Darren Wilson not liable for incorrect use of force, a new video has surfaced showing Mike Brown at the convenience store the day before, adding an entirely different narrative the controversial case.
The case, which went on to be the straw that broke the camel's back, became the motivating force behind #BlackLivesMatter and protesting other senseless killings that went on later that year.
The encounter was broken down by multiple descriptions. Accounts from neighbors and logistics from the investigated bloodstains on the street where Mr. Brown died all we're taken into account as the fate of Mike Brown's legacy came down to his work versus that of his killer.
One of the main indictments that defendants of Mike Brows's shooter brought to light was the surveillance video from a nearby convenience store that showed Mr. Brown pushing a worker and taking cigarillos minutes before the shooting.
With that context alone, Mike Brown appears to be an aggressive teen who just stood up a corner store. It gives the officer, Darren Wilson motive and it demeans the character of an otherwise very smart college bound young man. The new footage, however, shows Brown entering Ferguson Market and Liquor, shortly after 1 AM the day of his death. When in the store, he approaches the counter, hands over some type of small bag, then takes a shopping bag filled with cigarillos. Brown is then seen leaving the store with the sack but turns around to hand the cigarillos back before exiting.
Documentary filmmaker, Jason Pollock, who is filming the Strange Fruit documentary on Brown's side of the story, analyzes the context of what this infers given the information we already know, and says the footage challenges the police's story that suggests Mr. Brown committed a strong-armed robbery when he returned to the store around noon that day. Rather, Mr. Pollock believes that the new video shows an exchange of drugs — possible marijuana — and receiving cigarillos in return. Mr. Pollock thinks Brown left the cigarillos behind the counter for safekeeping and what we saw was him coming back to collect what was understood to be his.
“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 SXSW Festival in Austin and examines the shooting from the family’s perspective.
However, the convenience store's lawyer, Jay Kanzler says that the new found footage is unrelated.
“There was no transaction,” Mr. Kanzler told the New York Times. “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.”
The question remains as to why one version of the tape was released and this one, showing a perspective that could have been monumental in framing the context of what happened, is just now being released years later.
A spokesman for the county police said to the Times in an email this past weekend that footage of the earlier encounter had not been released because it was not relevant to the investigation.
Mr. Brown’s parents have filed a federal lawsuit against Officer Wilson, the city of Ferguson and the former Ferguson police chief. After the Department of Justice's investigation found that the Fergus police had been routinely violating the constitutional rights of its black residents, they may have a strong case.
A civil trial is scheduled to start next year.
