Three disturbing spins on the alleged shoplifting by Michael Brown that should make every black person in St. Louis not trust even more the Ferguson police department. 1) Who came up first with the idea of the still frame picture of Michael Brown seemingly holding up the store owner by the neck, even though the subsequent video showed something completely different, -- that he simply pushed the pursuing store owner away as the store owner was trying to grab him? So, who came up with the still frame idea? Was it the Ferguson chief of police? Or was it the media? 2) But more importantly, who also came up with the term strong-arm robbery in connection with the still frame picture? At worst, this was simply a very minor shoplifting incident. No weapon was involved, no physical force was involved, and Michael Brown was not even seen running away from the store, as it is usually the case when teenagers shoplift. Why was the term strong arm even used by the media? Was the fact that he merely pushed away someone trying to grab him an example of strong-arm behavior? 3) Why did media outlets initially link the shoplifting allegation to the murder of Michael Brown even though the two incidents were unrelated? The initial news reports clearly stated that the still frame picture had (quote) everything to do with what happened later (unquote). Did the police chief himself initially relay that connection to the news media? Or did the news media make the false connection on its own? These are serious questions. Those false spins were clearly calculated and malicious attempts by either the Ferguson police or the media to make the alleged shoplifting accusation look as incriminating and as bad as possible in order to instantly demonize the memory of Michael Brown, create a much stronger probable cause for the officer stopping Michael Brown, and to muddy the waters a little as it pertains to the officers state of mind during the shooting. Fortunately, the attempts seemed to have failed, since the chief of police himself was forced under questioning into admitting that the shooting had nothing to do with the shoplifting. But if you are a black resident of St. Louis, knowing that the Ferguson police department would go to such great lengths to demonize a Black man who was obviously murdered execution-style raises some serious issues of trust going forward.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 18:18:35 +0000
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