Protest returned to the streets of Ferguson on Sunday, March 12 following the release in a documentary of new footage from Ferguson Market recorded very early in the morning of the day that Michael Brown Jr. was killed by then Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson. One man was even charged with two felony counts for allegedly trying to set a St. Louis County Police cruiser on fire by trying to light a rag he had stuck in its gas tank on Sunday night.
But the footage, which was not introduced to the grand jury that reviewed the killing of Brown or released to the public, was heavily edited in the documentary where it appears, which premiered on Saturday at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas.
The footage concerns a visit that Brown made to the Ferguson Market at 1:14 a.m. on the day he was killed, August 9, 2014. A surveillance camera reveals someone, identified as Brown, approach the counter and offer something to the store clerks that they smell, then place back on the counter. Brown has taken soft drinks from a cooler and now orders cigarillos from over the counter, which he is served. One clerk appears to wave him off. Brown tries to leave with his bag of drinks and cigars, but then stops. He appears to argue with the clerks, but gives up and leaves without the goods, which are then restocked.
St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch released the video to the press and then public on Monday, March 13 in reaction to public response to the edited video footage that appears in the documentary. He also debunked the idea that the footage was suppressed.
“It was inadmissible and irrelevant” to the case against Wilson, McCulloch said, so it was not shown to the grand jury, and McCulloch only released to the public the evidence that he presented to the grand jury.
Public outrage was sparked because of the apparent attempt by officials to strategically release some, but not all, of the available footage of Brown from Ferguson Market. Brown returned to the market shortly before he was killed at 12:01 p.m. the same day. Video of Brown pushing aside a store clerk and walking out with a box of cigarillos was shown to the grand jury and released to the public.
Notoriously, then Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson released that video, which incriminated Brown, on the same day he identified Brown’s killer, Wilson, by name – even after President Obama’s Department of Justice warned local officials that the release of the video at that time would intensify protests, as it did.
However, the two pieces of video evidence have different degrees of relevance to the case against Wilson and were therefore handled differently, McCulloch claimed. Former federal prosecutor Hal Goldsmith, now a partner at Bryan Cave, agreed.
“What happened in the store just before he was killed was relevant to Michael Brown’s mindset at the time of the shooting, and the incident went out on the police radio, so it was a matter of public record – and arguably relevant to Wilson’s mindset at the time of the shooting,” Goldsmith told The American. “Absolutely, that was admissible and relevant if the case went to trial.”
There have been varying accounts whether Wilson knew that Brown was a robbery suspect when he shot and killed him. By most accounts, the incident between the officer and 18-year old youth started when Wilson told Brown to stop walking in the street, with jaywalking being his only suspected offense.
Goldsmith also agreed with McCulloch that the incident between Brown and store clerks at 1:14 a.m. was not relevant to the incident between Wilson and Brown at 12:01 p.m. the same day – even if the video did show Brown bartering drugs for cigarillos that he left behind to pick up later, as the documentary claims, but which is not true.
“If I am advocating for Mike Brown, I don’t want the jury or the public to see that first video,” Goldsmith said. “If it is marijuana he is trying to barter, that’s a criminal offense. And, looking at it from a prosecutor’s perspective, there is no reason to suppress criminal evidence of Michael Brown if you are trying to incriminate Michael Brown.”
