Thomas Jackson, the police chief of Ferguson, Missouri, held a press conference this morning to release additional information about recent developments, including the name of the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown last weekend. We now know the officer’s name is Darren Wilson, a six-year veteran of the force, and Jackson said he had not faced disciplinary action during his career.
What’s more, the local chief said Michael Brown, the unarmed teen killed by Wilson, was suspected of allegedly stealing cigars from convenience store and having an altercation with the store’s clerk. Trymaine Lee and Michele Richinick published this msnbc report:
According to the police report … video surveillance allegedly showed Brown and his friend, Dorian Johnson, in an altercation with a store employee on Aug. 9. Brown and Johnson grabbed cigars from the store and behind the counter, the police report said. Before they left the store, the employee attempted to stop Brown from taking the merchandise, according to the report. Brown grabbed the employee by the shirt and pushed him into a display rack in the store, the report said, and Brown and Johnson left the store with the cigars.The report released Friday does not appear to shed light on the details of Brown’s death, and it is unclear how the officer could have been certain of Brown’s involvement in the robbery earlier that morning.
The NBC News report added that a 911 call about the robbery came in at 11:51 a.m. A minute later, dispatchers gave a description of the suspect. Police confronted Brown at 12:01 p.m. and by 12:04 p.m., a second officer arrived at the scene and the accused was killed. A pdf copy of the incident report is available online here.
Also note, Dorian Johnson’s attorney confirmed to msnbc that Brown had taken cigars from the convenience store. That, however, sheds no light on what transpired minutes later when the accused was shot.
Indeed, at this point, the local police department appears to have released a lot more information about the alleged robbery than the shooting itself.
Here’s some video msnbc aired earlier, which includes still shots from the convenience-store camera.
Recommended
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."