March 12 (UPI) — A new documentary on the shooting death of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Mo., includes previously unseen video that casts doubt on whether he robbed a convenience store.
The surveillance video is part of a documentary called “Stranger Fruit” by filmmaker Jason Pollock. It debuted Saturday at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. The New York Times obtained footage from the documentary.
Pollock’s video shows the black 18-year-old’s altercation with store employees might have been a misunderstanding linked to a possible drug transaction he had earlier that day with store employees on Aug. 9, 2014.
Pollock said that Brown first exchanged a small amount of marijuana with store clerks for two boxes of cigarillos around 1 a.m., according to a clip of the documentary. But before leaving the store, Brown gave the cigarillos back to the store clerks, who placed them behind the counter, according to the clip. The documentary mentions Brown left the merchandise at the store for later retrieval. “Mike did not rob the store,” says the film narrator.
Ferguson police had released surveillance video of Brown strong arming his way out of the same store with cigarillos.
Darren Wilson, a white officer, encountered Brown and fatally shot him in an altercation in which events have been widely disputed.
“They destroyed Michael’s character with the tape, and they didn’t show us what actually happened,” Pollock, who spent more than two years in Ferguson researching his documentary, said to The New York Times. “So this shows their intention to make him look bad. And shows suppression of evidence.”
The shooting sparked widespread protests, including violent ones, in the city. It drew national attention on how police treat black men.
Wilson, who claimed he was in fear for his life, was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by a county grand jury and federal civil rights investigators on Nov. 24, 2014. He resigned from the police force.
Jay Kanzler, an attorney for the convenience store and its employees, told The New York Times that his clients dispute the film’s version of events.
“There was no transaction,” Kanzler told. “There was no understanding. No agreement. Those folks didn’t sell him cigarillos for pot. The reason he gave it back is he was walking out the door with unpaid merchandise and they wanted it back.”
It’s unclear what was contained in the small package that Brown handed to store clerks. But they are shown holding it their noses to smell.
St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said in an interview Saturday with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the fact that Brown was in the store earlier that day was “news to me.”
The department had mentioned Brown’s first visit to the store in its report.
Sgt. Shawn McGuire, a spokesman for the county police, said Saturday that footage of the earlier encounter wasn’t released because it was not relevant to the investigation.
