A newly released video of Michael Brown on the day he was shot has called into question the facts surrounding his shooting, a revelation that sparked protests over the weekend.
Surveillance footage from Ferguson Market & Liquor, the convenience store Brown allegedly robbed, shows that Brown was there earlier on the day he died, Aug. 9, 2014, around 1 a.m. Brown appears to hand a small bag to the store clerk, who in turn hands Brown a bag of cigarillos. Brown takes the bag and walks toward the door but then turns around and hands back the bag of cigarillos before exiting the store.
The new video clip was unveiled on Saturday, along with the release of “Stranger Fruit,” a documentary about the Brown shooting, at a film festival in Austin, Texas. Filmmaker Jason Pollack shared the clip with the New York Times ahead of the documentary’s release and said that he believes the footage shows Brown giving the store clerk marijuana in exchange for the cigarillos. Brown chose to leave the cigarillos behind for safekeeping, Pollack believes, and went back later in the day to retrieve them.
