Today police released a video of a convenience store robbery that happened before Michael Brown was shot, alleging that he was the one who robbed the store and stole cigars. The robbers were unarmed.
Yet Michael Brown was not stopped because of the robbery; he was stopped for walking in the street. The Ferguson Chief of Police has admitted this.
Whether or not it is Michael Brown in the video, his shooting had nothing to do with it. The fact that the video was released a week after the shooting allows people to infer that the police are doing this to save face.
I've seen way too many comments like "he was a thug and he died like one."
Whatever he did, he was unarmed and shot in the back multiple times. There is no excuse for that, no matter what the police try to come up with.
By releasing this information, their goal is to control the situation. They want the people on their side, and use information like this to reach that goal.
They are trying to suppress opposing opinions to the best of their ability; drawing attention away from reports and recordings that show the State in a less favorable light.
Videos and photos (which many mainstream sites did not cover) show journalists being tear gased and having their cameras smashed, as well as plenty of other recorded police violence.
In your opinion, does the release of this video change anything? Do you think it excuses the officer's actions?
Was the further police violence that occured after the protests justified?
"The one-sided and piecemeal disclosure of potentially irrelevant and prejudicial information, while continuing to withhold the critical police incident report that the public has demanded, suggests a desire to confuse rather than to shine a light on what happened."- Dennis Parker, Director of ACLU Racial Justice Program.
No comments:
Post a Comment