About a week ago, in Ferguson Missouri USA, a young black teenager Micheal Brown was shot and killed by a police officer Darren Wilson. Cases of young black teenagers killed have been getting a lot of media attention, a case of note was the shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. in Florida.
Was Micheal Brown a "gentle giant," a cigar thief, or a gang member?
The black teenager had no adult criminal record, according to the St. Louis County prosecutor. Family and friends described "Big Mike" as not "the type to fight" and "funny, silly, he would make you laugh." "He was never a person who liked confrontation," said Markese Mull, who described himself as a close friend. "His smile was going to make you smile."
But the portrait of Michael Brown emerging now contradicts some of those earlier portrayals of him as a "gentle giant."
According to a Ferguson police report released Friday, Mike Brown was the chief suspect in a robbery that occurred about 10 minutes before he was fatally shot. The report says Brown was seen by witnesses and on video tape, carrying a box of cigars from a nearby liquor store.
Photos from the video footage released by police show a large man dressed in a T-shirt and red St. Louis Cardinals cap, the same clothing Mike Brown was wearing when he was killed, shoving the liquor store clerk.
While the police report doesn't identify the store, media reports say it is Ferguson Market and Liquor. The store is now closed and on Friday evening hundreds of people had gathered at the location. The police report says that the robbery occurred Saturday Aug. 9 between 11:52 and 11:54 a.m.
The report says Brown was accompanied by Dorian Johnson, the same individual later identified as being with Brown when they were stopped at 12:01 p.m. for "jaywalking" by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Moments later, Brown was shot by Wilson.
There is no police video footage of the fatal encounter between Brown and Wilson, the police officer. Unlike many police departments, neither Ferguson police cars or officers are equipped with video cameras. The department reportedly received a federal grant recently to equip some patrol cars with cameras, but that hasn't occurred yet.
Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson said Friday that Officer Wilson had no knowledge that Brown was a suspect in the robbery at the time he encountered Brown.
No comments:
Post a Comment