There are some things you just cannot spin. You can’t polish a turd. It is a fact that Michael Brown was not murdered in the streets of Ferguson in 2014. The ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ was a lie. The physical evidence, which was also analyzed by the FBI, turned out that this was a clean shoot. And yet, on the five-year anniversary of the shooting, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) peddled a total lie about the shooting.
“5 years ago Michael Brown was murdered by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri,” tweeted Warren. “Michael was unarmed yet he was shot 6 times. I stand with activists and organizers who continue the fight for justice for Michael. We must confront systemic racism and police violence head on.”
5 years ago Michael Brown was murdered by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael was unarmed yet he was shot 6 times. I stand with activists and organizers who continue the fight for justice for Michael. We must confront systemic racism and police violence head on.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) August 9, 2019
Michael Brown’s murder forever changed Ferguson and America. His tragic death sparked a desperately needed conversation and a nationwide movement. We must fight for stronger accountability and racial equity in our justice system.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 9, 2019
“Michael Brown’s murder forever changed Ferguson and America. His tragic death sparked a desperately needed conversation and a nationwide movement. We must fight for stronger accountability and racial equity in our justice system,” added Harris on social media. So, is this gruesome twosome insinuating that President Obama’s Department of Justice engaged in a cover-up because their conclusion was quite different? Brown tried to grab the service weapon of former Officer Darren Wilson. A scuffle ensued and Wilson shot and killed Brown in self-defense. The evidence does not lie and Brown was no gentle giant. Guy also wrote about this trash peddled by these 2020 Democratic candidates, who know full well the facts of the case. The report from the Obama DOJ is public as well (via NRO):
"Murder"?
— David French (@DavidAFrench) August 10, 2019
False.
The overzealous prosecutor strikes again.
Here's the key conclusion from the Obama DOJ: https://t.co/A48s7TvHs2 pic.twitter.com/fiuSaT8ROd
When Wilson first spotted Brown and his friend, he told them to walk on the sidewalk. He then realized that they matched the description of the theft suspects and blocked their path with his vehicle.
Wilson tried to open his door, but it either bounced off Brown or Brown slammed it shut. Brown then reached into the vehicle and started punching Wilson. As Wilson fended off the blows, he reached for his gun. Brown allegedly tried to take the gun from Wilson, and Wilson managed to get a shot off, injuring Brown in the hand. Eyewitnesses corroborated Wilson’s claims that Brown was reaching in the car, and these claims were further corroborated by “bruising on Wilson’s jaw and scratches on his neck, the presence of Brown’s DNA on Wilson’s collar, shirt, and pants, and Wilson’s DNA on Brown’s palm.”
Brown then started to run away. After a brief pause Wilson pursued, ordering Brown to stop. Brown then turned back to Wilson and started running toward him. According to the report, “several witnesses stated that Brown appeared to pose a physical threat to Wilson as he moved toward Wilson.” Wilson fired again, striking Brown several times, yet Brown kept moving toward Wilson until the final shot hit him in the head, killing him.
So, with the Obama DOJ’s report, you’d think this would be rated as a “pants on fire” lie from Politifact, right? No. They defended Warren and Harris’ lie about Brown (via Fox News):
In the article, headlined "The death of Michael Brown, legal facts and Democratic messaging," PolitiFact correspondent Louis Jacobson acknowledged issues with Harris and Warren's language, noting that a state grand jury had found Wilson's use of force to be justifiable.
Jacobson also observed that the Obama administration's Justice Department separately cleared Wilson of federal civil rights violations, saying “there is no credible evidence that Wilson willfully shot Brown as he was attempting to surrender or was otherwise not posing a threat.” The Obama DOJ additionally concluded that "sufficient credible evidence supports Wilson's claim that he reasonably perceived Brown to be posing a deadly threat."
[…]
Nevertheless, Jacobson wrote that "because the significance of Harris’ and Warrens’ use of the word is open to some dispute, we won’t be rating their tweets on the Truth-O-Meter. ... Experts who have studied police-related deaths and race relations said that focusing too much on the linguistics in controversial cases comes with its own set of problems."
Jacobson quoted Jean Brown, a communications professor who focuses on "media representations of African Americans," as saying that the entire question of whether Warren and Harris spread a falsehood was nothing more than an "attempt to shift the debate from a discussion about the killing of black and brown people by police."
Brown's killing launched the international "Black Lives Matter" movement, even though initial claims that Brown was surrendering with his hands raised – saying, "Hands up, don't shoot" – proved unsubstantiated.
Excuse me? You’re not going to rate this on the so-called “truth-o-meter?” it makes sense. It would trash Democrats and fact-checkers in these outfits do one thing and one thing only now: shield their side from accountability. At all costs, make sure the Democrats look good. For years, we’ve all seen fact-check fails, where there are multiples examples of the Democrat-media complex at work. But this example is rather explicit. Like this is a clear-cut lie that should have put Warren and Harris through the shredder, or if you will, should have been scalped for its abhorrent dishonesty. It deserved a tomahawk chop and ending akin to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, but Politifact cannot make the Democrats look bad. To make their decision not to properly fact-check look even worse, The Washington Post, no fan of Trump or the GOP, gave these claims Four Pinocchios—their “pants on fire” rating.
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