The events preceding the shooting death of Michael Brown have been unclear since they occurred, but new security footage from a convenience store in Ferguson, Mo., allegedly shows Brown and his accomplice Dorian Johnson, stealing a box of cigars valued at just under $50.
A police report released by the Ferguson Police Department details the events leading up to the shooting, beginning with a call around noon to a police officer concerning a robbery in progress at a Ferguson Quiktrip convenience store. The report goes on saying how the investigating officer obtained a brief description of the two suspects and the direction they had run off in.
Upon not being able to locate the suspect, the investigating officer returned to the Quiktrip and observed security footage showing two suspects, reportedly Brown and Johnson, enter the store, and grab a box of Swisher Sweet cigars before a confrontation with the store staff begins. As Brown and Johnson attempted to leave the store, an employee tried to block their exit and Brown grabs the employee before pushing him into a nearby rack. Johnson exits without further incident, but Brown stands over the employee and, as the report claims, “intimidates” the employee, before leaving.
It was after this incident Brown and Johnson were located by Officer Darren Wilson, who was not the investigating officer, outside of an apartment complex, and Brown was fatally shot after a struggle with Wilson.
In the days after the death of Brown, Johnson has been in multiple interviews stating Brown was unnarmed at the time of the shooting, but he failed to mention his and Brown’s previous involvement in what could be robbery and assault.
Brown’s family have reacted strongly to the new accusations of their son being involved in a robbery before his death, and Ferguson residents have called the new evidence a “cover up.”
Benjamin Crump, the lawyer for the Brown family, said, according to the BBC, “The devious way the police chief has chosen to disseminate piecemeal information in a manner intended to assassinate the character of their son, following such a brutal assassination of his person in broad daylight.”
Details of the shooting are still cryptic as the police are saying, according to FOX News, Brown and Johnson assaulted Officer Wilson before the shooting, while Johnson claims he and Brown were running from Wilson as he fired shots at them.
