Five years ago Michael Brown died, and a movement based on lies was born

Five years ago, on August 9, 2014, Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri, by police officer Darren Wilson. The death, and the claim that Brown was shot with his hands up asking not to shoot, sparked riots and launched the Black Lives Matter Movement to national prominence

But the narrative was based on a lie. Brown was shot because he attacked and attempted to take Wilson’s pistol. His hands weren’t up, and he didn’t ask not to shoot, as an Obama-Holder Justice Department investigation later proved.

Yet on this 5th Anniversary, the lies are being spread again by many people, including by presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, who falsely claim Brown was murdered.

 

 
On the two-year anniversary of Brown’s shooting, I summarized the case and evidence. I don’t have much more to add. The truth hasn’t changed. Here is that post again:

On August 9, 2014, Ferguson, MO, Police Officer Darren Wilson shot dead Michael Brown.

Our first post about it was on August 11, 2014, as rioting broke out. We kept the coverage non-evaluative. We learned from prior cases, such as Trayvon Martin, not to accept at face value racial and other narratives being spun. We also learned from events such as the Boston Marathon and Newtown shootings that initial facts reported by the media often are wrong.

We embedded this news reports of the looting:

https://youtu.be/NteNCOXxWPY

Within days, various supposed eyewitnesses would claim Brown was a passive victim — an account we now know to be untrue — as summarized in this MSNBC report we posted on August 13, 2014:

It did not take long, however, for facts to come out indicating that all may not be as it seemed, as we posted on August 15, 2014, UPDATED: Brown Was a Robbery Suspect, Cop Identified in #Ferguson:

 
Very soon thereafter, it became obvious that the narrative of the Brown case would be “hands up, don’t shoot,” in which an innocent Brown was mercilessly gunned down for no reason as he attempted to submit.

That narrative and the racial angles on the case seemed to be just as much a fabrication as the initial narrative in the Trayvon Marting case, as Andrew Branca noted on August 19, 2014, Misleading Initial Narrative of Zimmerman-Martin Case Applied in Ferguson:

Another effort to bolster the “monstrous shooter” fork was the claim that Wilson shot Brown from a considerable distance, shot him repeatedly in the back as Brown was fleeing, while Brown had his hands raised in surrender, and while Brown being entirely compliant with Wilson’s lawful instructions. Were these facts true, Wilson’s conduct would have been monstrous, indeed.

The reality: We now hear that there exists quite another side to the story. This other side recounts how Wilson had just had the fight for his life against not just Brown but also Brown’s robbery-accomplice, Dorian Johnson, as the two men forced the officer back into his car and attempted to strip him of his sidearm….

It is worth noting at this point that many police officers who are killed by gunshot are shot with their own weapon that has been taken from them by assailants. Every police officer in the nation, likely in the world, is aware of this reality.

An attempt to seize an officer’s pistol is nothing short of an out-and-out declaration that you intend to slay that officer. Wilson would have been unquestionably entitled to use deadly force against both Brown and his accomplice to prevent this seizure from occurring.

While Andrew took no position at the time as to what happened, his prediction that if Brown attempted to take the officers gun then deadly force was justified, would turn out to be prophetic.

The Black Lives Matter movement, which was conceived in the Trayvon Martin case, was born in the Brown shooting. Hands Up, Don’t Shoot would be it’s rallying cry. That seminal factual allegation turned out to be a lie, but it gave birth to a movement which now dominated much of the media attention.

We continued to follow the riots and looting throughout August and as it died down by September. As October rolled around, and more evidence was released, Andrew did what he does best — follow the facts:

But by October we took note of another development: The rapid move by anti-Israel groups to exploit the shooting and turn it against Israel, Code Pink to exploit Ferguson “Weekend of Resistance” to bash Israel.

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