We've Got Hollywood Covered
|

Does This Video Change Everything We Know About the Michael Brown Shooting? (Video)

Unreported video of the hours leading up to the Ferguson shoot is included in the new documentary, ”Stranger Fruit“

| March 12, 2017 @ 7:37 PM

Nearly three years after the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer, security footage included in a new documentary raises questions about what happened in the hours before Brown’s death.

Jason Pollock, whose film “Stranger Fruit,” premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, told The New York Times that the tape challenges the police narrative of the events leading up to Brown’s death. Officers say that Brown committed a strong-armed robbery at a convenience store, which was why Officer Darren Wilson first confronted Brown.

But Pollock says the new footage raises other possibilities about what happened before the shooting.

Also Read: Ferguson Storm Brewing? When Media Began Twisting Death into Political Points

“Michael was in the store the night before he died, and St. Louis County saw the video tape and didn’t tell us,” Pollock narrates in the film.

He argues that Brown appeared to give a store employee a small bag of marijuana in exchange for two boxes of cigarillos, which he left in the store for safe keeping. Pollock says what appeared to be a robbery was actually Brown returning to pick up how cigarillos.

The owners of the store dispute Pollock’s version of the events, saying the two visits were unrelated.

Whatever the truth about the store footage may be, it does not resolve questions about Officer Darren Wilson’s fatal shooting of Brown. Wilson was cleared of criminal wrongdoings but resigned from the police force.

The shooting — and other police shootings of unarmed African-American men — led to nationwide protests. The ones in Ferguson were violent.

Also Read: Ferguson Storm Brewing? When Media Began Twisting Death into Political Points

Pollock, who spent more than two years in Ferguson researching “Stranger Fruit,” questions the decision to not charge Wilson. “This shows their intention to make [Michael] look bad. And shows suppression of evidence,” the filmmaker says.

Sgt. Shawn McGuire of the St. Louis County Police Department said in an email Saturday to The New York Times that he could not confirm the video’s authenticity, and the St. Louis County prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s requests for comment.

Watch the video above of the new footage.

9 People Fired or Suspended for Black Lives Matter Comments (Photos)

  • black lives matter
  • Nate Weekley Facebook
  • Miss Alabama TheWrap
  • kalyn chapman miss alabama Fox
  • charles black lives matter Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  • Jimmy Morris Columbia Firefighter Black Lives Matter Post Facebook
  • Overland Park Black Lives Matter KCTV
  • Andrew Sutton Black Lives Matter ABC13
  • Tennessee Jeremy McNary Facebook
  • jeremy mcnary black lives matter New York Daily News/Facebook
  • diane amoratis black lives matter Philly.com
  • derek hale black lives matter WDRB
1 of 12

BLM opponents suffered consequences for airing grievances after the protests

In light of the recent fatal shootings of Keith L. Scott and Terence Crutcher and the subsequent protests, TheWrap looks back at the people who expressed their grievances on social media during the Dallas shootings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling and the  demonstrations that followed. Here are 9 individuals whose voices were heard -- and who got in trouble for it.

View In Gallery

LIKE US