Pretty big difference.
Here's an excerpt, with the referenced video:
Where the Lie Began
On August 10, 2014, St. Louis County Police Chief John Belmar held his first press conference on the shooting of Mike Brown by Officer Darren Wilson of the nearby Ferguson Police Department. His force had been called in to take over the investigation for the much smaller local department. The shooting had occurred less than 24 hours earlier, and the tensions on the ground in Ferguson were already red hot and boiling over.
Six different witnesses on the scene claimed that Mike Brown was shot at repeatedly from behind before he turned around, faced Darren Wilson, verbally surrendered, and put his hands in the air. Wilson, having already shot at Mike Brown at least six times while he fled, then fired off a barrage of four quick shots at the surrendered Brown he was looking at face to face, killing him on the spot. With his lifeless body face down on the road, Mike Brown’s blood literally flowed down Canfield Drive for more than four hours. The shooting and the aftermath that evening, which included bringing police dogs to the scene, infuriated residents as never before, and the anger was spreading rapidly across St. Louis and into the nation.
When Chief Belmar sat down the next day to brief the press on his summary of the facts, he stated at 1:13 (and then even more emphatically at 6:01) in the video below, "The entire scene, from approximately the car door (of Officer Wilson) to the shooting, is, uh, about 35 feet."
See his video below and pay attention to the statements at 1:13 & 6:01.
At that time, when the chief said the "entire scene" was just 35 feet in distance from the "car door to the shooting," every observer accepted it as a negligible fact and thought little about it, instead zeroing in on why Darren Wilson stopped Mike Brown in the first place and why a police officer would shoot a young man who was surrendering with his hands up.
It turns, out, though, that the distance Mike Brown fled was not 35 feet, as was stated in the press conference and cited in hundreds of articles since. Nor was it 45 feet, or 75 feet, or even 95 feet, but approximately 148 feet away from Darren Wilson’s SUV. Below, you will find photos from the day of the murder, maps, infographics, and more to confirm for you that the distance was more 500 percent farther away than originally claimed by Chief Belmar and subsequently quoted as fact in almost every narrative of the case.
While the initial reporting of this distance from the chief could have been an error, albeit an egregious one, it seems clear now, after over 100 days of requests for the police to clarify this discrepancy have only produced silence, that it wasn’t an oversight, but a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts.
What reason would the chief have for so seriously understating the distance by more than 110 feet? Well, how far Mike Brown fled matters greatly, and the St. Louis County Police Department could have many reasons for purposely understating it. One doubts, though, that they expected to be caught telling this lie. When it was first told, while matters were tense in St. Louis and spreading on social media, nobody had any idea that this case would grip the nation and the world.
Without even using this space to dive into the actual shooting of Mike Brown, it appears that some base level misconduct can be suspected when the St. Louis County Police Department has repeatedly refused to address the discrepancy in distance.
When the police came out the morning after Mike Brown was killed and deliberately included the distance between the SUV and the shooting, it successfully created a very particular narrative. The arc of their initial story, magnified in importance by the absence of even one official report, is that Darren Wilson shot and killed a young man who, in a short distance from the SUV, posed him grave harm. How far Mike Brown actually fled, how far Darren Wilson chased him, and where each of them were in relation to each other and to the SUV, are facts of paramount importance. If Mike Brown fled over 148 feet away from Darren Wilson, it clearly suggests that Brown—unarmed, shot, missing a shoe, in lounge clothes—feared for his life and not the other way around.
Furthermore, police, in many cases, use the distance in which a suspect flees and the distance between them in an encounter as evidence to prove they were reasonably afraid for their safety—which is required by law.
What follows is evidence to the contrary. Mike Brown fled at least 148 feet away from Darren Wilson's SUV. If the police will lie about this fact, what else have they openly lied about? Did they present this false distance to the grand jury?
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Beware lest any try to confound the issue further by saying that this is a somehow ill-chosen battle -- and implying (or stating outright) that common sense, armed with the facts, would find that Wilson's use of undue and lethal force ending the life of Brown without cause, was in some way arguable or justified.
Let's not get confused here. Have a look for yourself. Many more photos at the above link like the one above. To add to this excellent analysis, a few more primary documents:
Let's not get confused here. Have a look for yourself. Many more photos at the above link like the one above. To add to this excellent analysis, a few more primary documents:
And if there is any difficulty with the links, I have archived the article in several formats (including unbreakable ones) at my new blog for such resources. I call it "-102" (pronounced "minus one oh two")...
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| My new effort in the war against the memory hole. |
Be seeing you.
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