by Dish Staff
At the first of two press conferences today, Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson IDed the officer who killed Michael Brown and added that the teenager was suspected of robbing a convenience store on the day of his death. At the second, Jackson admitted the robbery had nothing to do with the shooting:
Jackson on Friday said the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown was not aware that the unarmed 18-year-old was accused of robbing a convenience store just minutes before the shooting. Jackson said that “the initial contact with Brown was not related to the robbery.” Jackson also clarified that Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed Brown, wasn’t even responding to a call about the robbery as initially reported. Wilson instead stopped Brown because he was jaywalking.
Brian Beutler confesses, “I find the Ferguson police department’s behavior over the past week even more baffling than I did before”:
For the sake of argument let’s assume (a huge assumption) that the Ferguson police are not trying to build a public case for Wilson’s innocence by assassinating a dead man’s character. Why did it take five days for them to release this information, none of which has anything to do with the circumstances of Brown’s death? … Per Matt Yglesias, if Brown was a suspect in a robbery, why wasn’t his accomplice Dorian Johnson arrested and charged rather than allowed to escape and appear in multiple television news interviews? Was Johnson lying when he claimed that Wilson approached him and Brown not to question or arrest them for robbery but to tell them to “get the fuck onto the sidewalk”?
Aura Bogado argues that the Ferguson police are doing transparency all wrong:
In the images and video released to the media this morning, someone who is purported to be Brown is seen pushing another person assumed to be a store clerk. We’re told that the person identified as Brown stole a box of little cigars. The problem here is that the supposed images of Brown, along with the unverified allegation that he carried out a “strong-arm robbery,” primes the media – and its readers – to focus on the wrong suspect. Rather than releasing images of Darren Wilson – who’s suspected of something far more serious than theft – this emphasis places blame on the victim. Even if it’s confirmed that Brown took a box of cigars and pushed a store clerk in one place, he was killed in another – and witnesses claim the 18-year-old was essentially executed in cold blood.
Ed Morrissey also raises an eyebrow:
If Brown and Johnson were fleeing from a felony theft, the shooting may have been justified under Missouri law – which may explain why the police handed out the report on the strong-arm robbery. But they still have not released the report on the shooting itself, and it doesn’t explain why it took six days to get around to discussing the robbery.
Meanwhile, German Lopez notes that Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson, who’s been credited with calming the situation in Ferguson, was “not notified” that the local police was going to release the news:
The lack of communication between the two police departments raises questions about the coordination of security in Ferguson. Given the volatility in the St. Louis suburb, law enforcement, protesters, and reporters on the ground are concerned the allegations that Brown robbed a convenience store could escalate the situation. Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson, who’s leading security operations in Ferguson, acknowledged the mood changed in the area after Friday’s news release. Johnson suggested he would have “a serious conversation” with local police about not giving him the information prior to the release.
Jelani Cobb gets to the heart of the matter in describing the latest developments as “an object lesson about the importance of accountability and transparency”:
The release of the images that possibly show Brown assaulting a man makes these issues more important, not less. The reasons that the officer stopped Brown, the possibility that the 18-year-old struggled or just panicked, might become less inexplicable. That Brown appeared to have been involved in a robbery, even that he was a large man who might, conceivably, have resisted arrest, do not abjure the possibility of excessive force in the confrontation at Canfield Green; there is no death penalty for stealing cigars. Brown was shot thirty-five feet from Wilson, and the question of whether Brown’s back was to Wilson when the officer fired the gun—that is, if he was running away, and therefore not a threat—is just as pressing, as is the question of whether his hands were in the air, as witnesses claim, when the final volley of shots came. One of the pieces of information the police has delayed releasing is just how many bullets hit him. We also need to know why this information has been so hard to come by. The answers have not come quickly or completely—and not very willingly. What people who gathered in Ferguson have sought, even more resolutely than the police officer’s name, is, simply, respect.
Follow all our coverage on Michael Brown and Ferguson here.
(Photo: Demonstrators wrote messages while protesting on August 15, 2014, the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. By Joshua Lott/AFP/Getty Images)
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