“If you want to call me an activist attorney general, I will proudly accept that label,” Holder said in a recent interview. “Any attorney general who is not an activist is not doing his or her job.”
The surveillance video that showed Michael Brown robbing a convenience store, was a highly relevant piece of information. The aggression the “gentle giant” displayed toward the store clerk lent credence to Officer Darren Wilson’s side of the story – which is that the 6’4″ 292 pound Brown assaulted him, and went after his gun while he was inside the police car. It has also been alleged by a family friend and an eye witness that Brown charged the officer after he got out of his car to pursue him.
The narrative the black community heard for nearly a week was more along the lines of what John Hayward said on Friday;
“the story that sparked riots in Ferguson was that gentle, sweet, innocent, wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly Brown was just walking down the street when the cop pulled up and gunned him down for no reason at all. Brown had his hands up, and was trying to be nice, but the cop blew him away, shot him in the back, emptied God knows how many bullets into him. We were told over and over that Brown was a great kid, and it was utterly inexplicable that a police officer would confront him at random – well, explicable only by vile racism, that is.”
The shooting took place on Saturday, August 9 and it took until the Friday the 15th for the surveillance video to be released. Since the shooting occurred, Ferguson has been wracked with riots, destruction of property and looting every night.
The significance of the surveillance video has understandably led some to wonder, why on earth did the police not release it sooner?
“What upsets me is that it should have been all over the news,” said Tatinisha Wheeler, a protester who lives in St. Louis. She said she was confused why the police wouldn’t have immediately said Mr. Brown had been allegedly involved in a crime. “Now they’re going to say it’s a robbery?” she asked.
If the video had come out right away, the gentle giant narrative would never have been able to take hold in the way it did.
Now we know the reason for the delay.
The Holder Justice Department pressured the Ferguson Police Dept. not to release the tape showing the latest left-wing cause celeb to be a violent criminal.
Via NBC News:
The Department of Justice urged Ferguson police not to release surveillance video purporting to show Michael Brown robbing a store shortly before he was shot and killed by police, arguing the footage would further inflame tensions in the St. Louis suburb that saw rioting and civil unrest in the wake of the teenager’s death.
Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson released the video Friday, telling reporters that he had no choice because the media requested the release under the Freedom of Information Act. The Department of Justice, which is conducting its own investigation into Brown’s Aug. 9 death, has had a copy of the footage all along and never considered releasing it to the public, the source said.
Holder has also ordered another autopsy in addition to the state-performed autopsy.
“Due to the extraordinary circumstances involved in this case and at the request of the Brown family, Attorney General Holder has instructed Justice Department officials to arrange for an additional autopsy to be performed by a federal medical examiner,” Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon said in statement. “This independent examination will take place as soon as possible. Even after it is complete, Justice Department officials still plan to take the state-performed autopsy into account in the course of their investigation.”