A video making the rounds on conservative blogs is highlighting a critical question: Did Michael Brown attack the police officer who fatally shot him?
This undated photo provided by the Brown family shows Michael Brown. Michael Brown, 18, was shot and killed in a confrontation with police in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Mo, on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2014. (AP Photo/Brown Family)
The shooting death of Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black man, at the hands of a white police officer has set off a national firestorm.
Brown's hometown of Ferguson, Missouri, has been rocked by a week of protests, and the local police have handed over the investigation of the shooting — and control of the town — to the state highway patrol and the FBI.
The details of the shooting remain unclear, with witnesses telling conflicting stories about whether Brown attacked the officer, or whether he was walking away with his hands in the air, before being fatally shot.
A video posted to YouTube Thursday purports to show the scene of the Aug. 9 shooting, but as the Conservative Treehouse noted Friday, a conversation heard in the background of the video (starting at around the 6:30 mark) offers some damning allegations: Brown may have rushed the officer who shot him.
The transcript, from the Conservative Treehouse:
#1 How’d he get from there to there?#2 Because he ran, the police was still in the truck – cause he was like over the truck
{crosstalk}
#2 But him and the police was both in the truck, then he ran – the police got out and ran after him
{crosstalk}
#2 Then the next thing I know he doubled back toward him cus - the police had his gun drawn already on him –
#1. Oh, the police got his gun
#2 The police kept dumpin on him, and I’m thinking the police kept missing – he like – be like – but he kept coming toward him
{crosstalk}
#2 Police fired shots – the next thing I know – the police was missing
#1 The Police?
#2 The Police shot him
#1 Police?
#2 The next thing I know … I’m thinking … the dude started running … (garbled something about “he took it from him”)
The account offered by the alleged eyewitness seems to echo an account given by an alleged friend of the officer, Darren Wilson, who shot Brown.
The alleged friend called into Dana Loesch's radio program Friday and claimed that Wilson had been attacked multiple times by Brown before finally shooting the teenager.
"[Brown] just started bum rushing [Wilson]," the caller said. "He just started coming at him full speed. And, so [Wilson] just started shooting."
The alleged friend's identity has not been verified, and the video that allegedly captured an honest, immediate eyewitness testimony has also not been firmly verified.
A makeshift memorial sits in the middle of the street where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by police, Monday, Aug. 11, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo. The FBI has opened an investigation into the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager on Saturday whose death stirred unrest in a St. Louis suburb. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
But together, the two stories seem to offer powerful evidence that the shooting of Michael Brown was a complicated affair — and the police officer who gunned him down may not be a villain.
This story has been updated.
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Follow Zach Noble (@thezachnoble) on Twitter
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