The picture above isn’t how we usually see Michael Brown Jr. We usually see grainy images of him shoving someone in a convenience store, or perhaps laying prone on the ground for 4 hours in the hot sun after being shot dead by former Ferguson Police Office Darren Wilson.
We don’t think of Michael Brown Jr. as a person. A loving son with parents who cared for him. Filmmaker Jason Pollock has taken two years of his life and dedicated it to showing us the Michael Brown we never saw. He’s not just focused and his tragic and unnecessary killing by a frightened police officer, he’s also focused on his life, on who he truly was and what he truly meant to his parents, family and friends.
But first he had to put to rest some of the ghosts of Michael-The-Thug that the Ferguson Police and mainstream media has given us. As noted by The Root.
Stranger Fruit is a documentary about what happened to Mike Brown, told through the eyes of those closest to him, including his father, Michael Brown Sr. Pollock delivers an in-depth look at the facts of Mike Brown’s case in an effort unravel the full story of what happened on Aug. 9, 2014, when then-Ferguson, Mo., Police Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Brown.
The documentary brought to light the never-seen-before security footage of Brown that Ferguson police deemed “not relevant.”
So far the film has received most of it’s attention because of several minutes of previously unearthed footage which took place at the local market which Michael had visited the previous night and attempted to barter for goods. The success or non-success of that barter attempt has stirred the current controversy, but it is largely off the main point: Who was Michael Brown Jr and why was he killed?
St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch — who failed to indict Officer Wilson after a horribly botched Grand Jury — has come out strongly in criticism of the tape and filmaker Jason Pollock.
McCulloch calls Jason an “amateur” when in fact he’s previously worked with Michael Moore on Fahrenheit 911 and several other projects.
McCulloch: He’s making up facts to go along with his film. It’s just silly to say I have control over the U.S. Department of Justice. It’s just nonsense. T
here was no bullet in the ground near Michael Brown’s head. [Right, sure,
see Item #17 “Apparent Projectile” from the crime scene] This guys is just trying to push his movie which is made up. Makes up the facts on it. [We’ve shown] the entire surveillance video from all four videos from all angles.
…
What happened at 1 o’clock that morning was logical and legally irrelevant, which is why it was never presented to the Grand Jury. That’s not something I could use in a trial, so it wasn’t presented to the Grand Jury.
Yeah, ok, a lot of the evidence Mcculloch presented in the grand jury he wouldn’t have presented at a trial because the defense would have been doing that. He argued back then that he want to “include everything” and be transparent and used that as an excuse to put a pro-Wilson witness on the stand who was never at the scene and that he knew would commit perjury, now he’s making excuses about why this was left out because it wouldn’t have “helped his prosecution”, when he never seemed interested in a prosecution to begin with. His people treated all pro-Brown witnesses as hostile, questioning them mostly about their use of marijuana and not what they saw, and Wilson himself as a welcomed friend. They actually apologized to Wilson for asking him to testify.
And then there is a former member of his grand jury who is suing him for not being allowed to speak out and say that they believed Wilson should have been indicted.
"In (the grand juror)'s view, the current information available about the grand jurors' views is not entirely accurate -- especially the implication that all grand jurors believed that there was no support for any charges," the lawsuit says. "Moreover, the public characterization of the grand jurors' view of witnesses and evidence does not accord with [the grand juror]'s own."
As you can see here in the slightly extended video provided by Ferguson Police that after Michael places something on the counter which they sniff and inspect and they hand him a bag of goods — he gives the bag back and then they place the items back on the shelf. It’s not clear — at least not to me — that Michael takes back what he put down and there is no transaction as McColloch argues contrary to what Pollock’s film contends.
It’s possible that Michael did take it back, although it’s hard to see on the tape, however it’s also true from the original tape that was released by police just days after the initial incident that Brown put something down on the counter then too, before leaving the store with goods in his hand — two packs of cigarillos worth about $5 total — then being blocked and accosted by the store owner in the door way. We usually only see the part where Michael shoves him aside, but in reality the owner laid hands on him first. And if they had taken Michael’s property from him at the counter, which isn’t clear on the tape, then they’re the thieves, not him.
But whether this issue is resolved one way or the other isn’t the point of the film.
I spoke to Jason this week, as a follow on to the interview I did with him 2 years ago when he was originally crowdfunding his film. He didn’t have much to say about this particular controversy other than the following:
We have the truth on our side guys. [To McCulloch] Why didn’t you do a proper investigation? Why did they edit their own video? How many sunshine requests were they sent?
They are just trying to demonize Michael again.
I spent 95 minutes on this movie, [but] just 90 seconds on the tape. Most of my movie is about the forensics and the ballistics in the shooting. The tape has always been a distraction and it always will be. It’s just a salacious media hit, we wanted to make sure it came out correctly.
What did or didn’t happen in the store is not the point. What did or didn’t happen on Canfield Ave is the point. Who Michael Brown Jr. truly was, and who he wasn’t, is the point of the film. Here we see Michael Brown Sr. sitting down with Jason for an interview with the Root where they’re asked if AG Jeff Sessions will be helpful with police misconduct issues and pointing out the Bob McCulloch is on the board of a pro-police non-profit. Not exactly a neutral position to hold.
This film is much larger than 2 minutes in a convenience store, it’s about Michael and it’s about all the ways that the justice system failed him. What Jason told me is this is what he’s, so far, most proud of about the film.
The Hollywood Reporter said we were one of the 10 best films at SXSW. This isn’t a fad, it isn’t a two minute thing. I’ve been working here for two years to make a great movie to move people’s hearts and souls. There’s the evidence and the human face. [Just about] the only people in the movie is Michael family.
They rip your heart out, because you see what they’ve gone through.
The narration is by Jason himself, but most of those who appear on camera are members of Michael’s family, his father and his mother, and the reason is because we don’t often get to see the family of someone shot down by police — as a family. We’re supposed to think of them all as a complicit in the actions of the “suspect”, someone so vile they simply deserved summary execution in the street. They aren’t worthy of our compassion, they aren’t worthy of are empathy. Jason sees that as part of a deliberate campaign to justify violence against the poor.
It’s the dehumanization of black life, as if they love their families less. We live in a time where bigotry is popular.
When I first saw Jason being interviewed on CNN this week, I grew somewhat concerned that the newly released tape was becoming the centerpiece of the discussion, whereas I think the larger concern is what the forensics showed and how they clearly indicated that Wilson repeatedly lied to investigators and the FBI. He lied about what happened between him and Michael at the SUV because all of his bruises were on the wrong side of his head for Michael to have been “closed-fist punching him” the way he claimed. He also lied when he again began shooting at him while his back was turned as indicated by the bullet wound in the back of Michael’s right bicep. You can’t make that shot if someone is facing you, not unless their arms in over their head or some weird airplane position.
I asked Jason if he’d consulted with any forensic scientists in conjunction with the film?
We feature Dr. Cyril Wecht and discuss the bullet trajectories a lot. We showed a lot of Dr. Wecht’s statements in the film.
Dr Wecht’s live commentary on CNN about the bullet trajectories was preliminary and was stated before the official autopsy report was released, but it is instructive. Full Transcription.
I have to admit when I’d seen some of the recreations Jason had done two years ago I was critical. One showed Michael on his knees as the final shots were fired which was highly inconsistent with the physical evidence and crime scene photos which had become available at that time. One little technically mistake can throw the credibility of your entire argument in to chaos.
If you’re a progressive that is.
If you’re a conservative you can claim your predecessor committed a felony and illegally “wiretapped” your home without the slightest shred of evidence, then keep that bogus argument up for weeks using talking points fed to you by Kremlin TV until the final tiny dancing angel gets knocked off your imaginary pin. Or you can be a police department and claim that Michael Brown only ran 30 ft, when in fact he ran over 100 ft. without anyone starting to doubt your honesty. I’d seen how the right-wing savaged Jason’s colleague Michael Moore over his interview with Charlton Heston from “Bowling for Columbine.” More ammo is not what the right-wing needs to discredit a film that challenges their “big black thug deserved to get shot” narrative.
So back then I gave him a lot of the data and facts I’d put together over a dozen articles, and he appreciated that. Particularly one that summed up all the forensics and this one where I contrasted the physical evidence with the witness testimony.
We looked at your article a lot. It took me almost a year to fully understand it, but we looked at other pieces too.
Well, that’s nice. Glad I could help. [Jason later contacted me and said I’d be receiving a “Thank You” credit in the film, so there goes my wafer thin veneer of “objectivity.” Oh well...]
I then asked him what he thought about the meme that “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot was a Lie?” That the entire idea was a construction of the media, a narrative that people wanted to believe in order to rationalize the killing of an unarmed teenager in the street. Many progressives from Van Jones to Jonathan Alter have essentially embraced that idea that Michael never raised his hands despite numerous witness who said that he did, particularly the construction workers who were shown at the scene immediately reacting in real time.
Jason told me the film covers this issue in detail.
“Hands up” — I see that as a rabbit hole they send us down. Dorian Johnson [Michael’s friend who had accompanied him to the convenience store] physically shows us what happened in a terrifying way. He shows exactly how Michael fell. It’s horrifying. Once you cut away from all the BS, you’ll see that Dorian told the truth.
But what about the Department of Justice report that determined that Federal charges shouldn’t be filed against Wilson?
All the DOJ said.. was they could not determine [the angle of Brown’s arms]. People didn’t read the report, they just didn’t read it.
And I have to admit, Jason has a point. This is what the DOJ report says about whether Michael Brown’s arms were up or down on Page #19.
Given the mobility of the arm, it is impossible to determine the position of the body relative to the shooter at the time the arm wounds were inflicted. Therefore, the autopsy results do not indicate whether Brown was facing Wilson or had his back to him. They do not indicate whether Brown sustained those two arm wounds while his hands were up, down, or by his waistband. The private forensic pathologist opined that he would expect a re-entry wound across Brown’s stomach if Brown’s hand was at his waistband at the time Wilson fired. However, as mentioned, there is no way to know the exact position of Brown’s arm relative to his waistband at the time the bullets struck. Therefore, these gunshot wounds neither corroborate nor discredit Wilson’s account or the account of any other witness. However, the concentration of bullet wounds on Brown’s right side is consistent with Wilson’s description that he focused on Brown’s right arm while shooting.
So they didn’t prove anything one way or the other on this issue. It could be argued that they point out that if Brown’s arms were down at his waistband — as Office Wilson claimed they were — there would have been a re-entry wound in his stomach in line with the graze on his forearm, but there wasn’t indicating again that Wilson lied. Somehow the DOJ never seemed to consider that the wound track was going the wrong direction — upward — for Brown’s arm to be at his side and that there actually was a re-entry wound, in Brown’s upper right chest, because his arm was raised, just like Dorian, the construction workers and other witnesses said in the first place. The forensic and bullet positions IMO tend to prove that Brown was surrendering and that his shooting was an execution, not an act of self-defense — and if Pollock’s film manages to make this point convincingly, he’s got dynamite on his hands.
I then asked what Jason’s future plans were for the film now that SXSW is over?
It’s going on a world tour, to festivals all over the world. Not just in the main movie cities like New York and Los Angeles. I really want to take this through the south. We have a problem in this country, with the systematic victimization of the poor. People need to have their eyes opened.
The greatest coverup is of Micheal Brown’s character. He was a great guy. It breaks my heart, I’ve cried so much.
At this point it’s doubtful that any legal action by local authorities or federal will take place. All those avenues have been shutdown, but there is a pending civil action by the family against the City of Ferguson. It’s just rather unfortunate that Wilson won’t be required to pay any restitution if such an suit is successful, it will all be paid by the City. Meanwhile Wilson will continue to sit in a new house he purchased with the $1 Million he was sent by supporters and married his girlfriend after McCulloch failed to indict him.
A home and a family, he now has all the things that Michael Brown Jr. will never have.
But perhaps, this film may give Michael and his family back their dignity, honor and humanity.