CNN’s Don Lemon held a panel discussing the evidence and ultimate outcome of the trials, demonstrations, and riots surrounding the killing of Michael Brown.
The panel convened following the release of a Washington Post article this week titled “‘Hands up, don’t shoot’ was built on a lie.” According to the article:
“Page 8: Although there are several individuals who have stated that Brown held his hands up in an unambiguous sign of surrender prior to Wilson shooting him dead, their accounts do not support a prosecution of Wilson.
As detailed throughout this report, some of those accounts are inaccurate because they are inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence; some of those accounts are materially inconsistent with that witness’s own prior statements with no explanation, credible [or] otherwise, as to why those accounts changed over time.
Certain other witnesses who originally stated Brown had his hands up in surrender recanted their original accounts, admitting that they did not witness the shooting or parts of it, despite what they initially reported either to federal or local law enforcement or to the media. Prosecutors did not rely on those accounts when making a prosecutive decision.”
Panelist Kevin Jackson got the conversation started, according to the Huffington Post:
“‘The fact that it was built on a lie, the fact that people continue to want to propagate the lie, the fact that they’ve embarrassed the city of Ferguson and the great people there … all the things leading into Ferguson — the statistics — all lies,’ he said.”
A few disputes arose over whether or not certain witness testimony was credible. Criminologist David Klinger countered by reminding the panel that the physical evidence corroborated Wilson’s testimony.
Another panelist, Monifa Bandele of Communities United for Police Reform, argued that some witnesses were not cross-examined with evidence.
Bandele was echoed by Brian Stelter, who stated that several witnesses were too intimidated to speak out during the foray in Ferguson. Brietbart reports:
“The eyewitnesses that didn’t speak to the press, the ones that were intimidated. According to the DOJ, witnesses that didn’t want to come forward, those are the voices we didn’t hear in the news coverage. And that’s a lesson for journalists, that we weren’t hearing every witness’ point of view.”
Jackson responded with a line that defined the conversation:
“Many people were blatantly lying,” he said. “They blatantly lied about Darren Wilson.”
This is not the first time Jackson has spoken out against the familiar narrative. In November, Jackson appeared on Fox News radio and stated that there was no cause to convict Wilson.
A full video of the CNN discussion is below:
The post A CNN Panel Shows the Tune Is Really Changing on the Whole ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ Thing appeared first on Independent Journal.