AUSTIN, Texas (CBSNews) — Newly released surveillance video that shows Michael Brown in the Ferguson Market 11 hours before he was shot by officer Darren Wilson, has a documentary-maker challenging the account that Brown robbed the store of cigarillos shortly before the shooting.
Jason Pollock says the video contained in “Stranger Fruit,” which premiered at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, shows Brown in the store at 1 a.m on Aug. 9, 2014, exchanging pot with store employees for two boxes of cigarillos.
Pollock narrates as Brown starts walking out of the store, but then turns and hands the boxes to a clerk who puts them behind the counter. “The next day, with his hands politely behind his back, Mike goes back into the store to get his stuff.”
Brown’s mother, Lezley McSpadden, then says, “It was a misunderstanding.
“There was some type of exchange for one thing for another,” McSpadden says. “That these people know each other well enough that this is the relationship that they have.”
“Mike traded the store a little bag of weed,” Pollock says in the film, “and got two boxes of cigarillos in return. He left his items at the store and he went back the next day to pick them up. Mike did not rob the store!”
Video from Brown’s later visit, moments before he was shot, shows him pushing the store’s owner as he leaves with cigarillos.
An attorney for the store tells the New York Times that its employees did not sell Brown cigarillos for pot.
County Police say they cannot confirm the video’s authenticity and point out that Ferguson Police released the video of the confrontation involving Brown at the store.
Brown’s parents have filed a federal lawsuit against Officer Wilson, the former Ferguson police chief and the city of Ferguson.
