St. Louis "protesters" want to "take over" store their hero Michael Brown robbed

[Derec]

Un-fucking-believable!
Protesters continue to target Ferguson convenience store in the name of Michael Brown

Protesters have been gathering outside of Ferguson Market and Liquor since Aug. 9 — the fourth anniversary of the police shooting death of Michael Brown Jr. — calling on the convenience store to take more ownership of its role in the saga and submit to a list of requests.[..]
The protester group had the following requests:
• Address Michael Brown Jr.’s character.
• Close the store for three days on the anniversary of his death.
• Create a scholarship in his name.
• Find ways to interact and give back to the community.
• Stop selling Dormin, a sleeping capsule, and other items that can be misused to get high.
• Retain a black-owned security company to protect the store.

- Let me address his character for you: Michael Brown was a thug who robbed that store and assaulted a police officer.
- Why should the store be closed in honor of a robber or a scholarship created in his name? Seems like extortion to me.
- "Give back to the community"? It's a store. You go in, you buy stuff.
- What does Dormin have to do with Michael Brown? if they had said to stop selling Swisher Sweets, I would see some connection.
- Yes, definitely extortion. "You have a nice store here ..."

Unfortunately, the store caved to most of the extortionist demands.

Kanzler said the store ultimately agreed to all of the requests by Aug. 22, other than closing the store for three days. Instead, he said, the store would close on the anniversary of Brown’s death and provide a free barbecue the day before.

Which merely emboldened them to up the ante.

But in recent days, Kanzler said, protest leaders told him that they weren’t interested in going through with the agreement anymore and that the only thing that would resolve the matter was if the store was sold to them. He said formal offers hadn’t been made.

So now they want to "buy" the store. Probably for pennies on the dollar, because they are at the same time hindering the ability of the store to do business through this constant "protesting". That's some Mafia tactics right there.
And of course, St. Michael's father is part of it too.

Michael Brown Sr. said Saturday on Facebook that he wanted to thank everyone that had “been dedicated to the movement toward a take over” of the store.

Yeah, I bet he is. Not content with the >1 million dollars he and his baby mama extorted from the taxpayers already I see.

Gina Gowdy, 49, joined him at one point. She said she was motivated to protest the store because of unseen surveillance footage that came out last year in the controversial documentary, “Stranger Fruit,” which claimed Brown didn’t rob Ferguson Market shortly before he was shot.

That "footage" was shown to be misleadingly edited by the filmmaker Jason Pollock. But facts have never mattered to these race hustlers.

Here is another article:
Protesters Want Ferguson Market Sold, Renamed for Michael Brown

Protesters are showing up daily wanting to buy the Ferguson Market, where Michael Brown got into a tussle with a clerk just before he was shot and killed by police four years ago.

I wonder, if these bullies succeed in pressuring the owner to sell to them, will they allow their "customers" to just take merchandise without paying and shove their employees on the way out?

Every day since August 9th, protestors have been demonstrating at the Ferguson Market. Among them, musician Edaz Redden. He says the market withheld evidence about the infamous cigarillo incident to make Michael Brown look bad.

That claim has been disproven a while ago.

They didn’t tell the world that they were buying marijuana, they just said that they took the cigarillos, basically like a strong arm robbery,” he says. “There was footage, the owners purchased some marijuana and in exchange they were supposed to give [Michael] a box of cigarillos. Mike said he ‘d come back the next day to get the cigarillos, and when he came back the owner acted like he didn’t know what was going on.”

That story did not ring true even before it was shown that it was based on dishonestly edited footage. Why would somebody leave cigarillos behind and come for them the next day? They are not bulky.

That's how protesters say it went down. Now they want the store sold to Michael Brown's father and renamed in honor of Michael Brown.

That's right up there with "Willie Sutton Memorial Bank".
And again, I wonder how the Senior would react to people honoring his son by robbing his store?

 

[laughing dog]

People protesting and making demands that someone does not like. Oh, the horrors!

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So apparently, rightists think Nazis can protest because they want to "1. believe in republicanism, 2. killing Jews, and 3. whatever they said," but it's not okay if some small number of black people peacefully assemble and use free speech. What has suddenly happened to the "free speech advocates?"

 

[Derec]

So apparently, rightists think Nazis can protest because they want to "1. believe in republicanism,

You don't believe in republicanism? What are you? A monarchist?

2. killing Jews, and 3. whatever they said,"

Calls for killing people have not been defended by anybody here. And hatred of Jews is more au courant on the Left. What with people like Jeremy Corbyn or Linda Sarsour.

but it's not okay if some small number of black people peacefully assemble and use free speech. What has suddenly happened to the "free speech advocates?"

They are not engaging in free speech. They are trying to extort the business owner into selling the business to the thug's father.
And remember, this store was looted in 2014.

 

[Underseer]

Welcome to America, where begging for your life is a controversial political position, but treason is not.

 

[Derec]

Welcome to America, where begging for your life is a controversial political position, but treason is not.

Who was begging for his life? The evidence showed that St. Michael of the Swisher Sweets
- robbed the Ferguson Market, same store these "protesters" want to force owner into selling
- attacked police officer in his car
- after walking away for a bit, turned around and came at the police officer again

The shooting was deemed to be justified.

Now, do you have anything to say about these people trying to force the victim of the robbery out of business?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

The store owner should lean into this rather than away from it if all Derec says here is true.

Take out an add, turn the crazed thug protestors into a tourist attraction. Sell some products modeled after them. Make Michael Brown into a mascot.

 

[RavenSky]

The store owner should lean into this rather than away from it if all Derec says here is true.

Take out an add, turn the crazed thug protestors into a tourist attraction. Sell some products modeled after them. Make Michael Brown into a mascot.

Or maybe "lean into this" by talking with the protestors and seeing what would be agreeable to both sides. The convenience store owner could very easily help this community heal, and end up looking like a hero...

The protester group had the following requests:
• Address Michael Brown Jr.’s character.

I've read articles in the days after the killing wherein the convenience store owner was as distressed as everyone else that Michael Brown had been killed over something so stupid, and that he regretted calling the police given the outcome. I doubt HE would have a problem saying a few kind words about the dead young man.

• Close the store for three days on the anniversary of his death.

Probably too much to ask of a small shop owner, but the owner could offer to do something else - maybe something community oriented - to remember Michael Brown

• Create a scholarship in his name.

Doesn't have to be a big one, and (from a purely capitalistic perspective) great PR for the shop owner.

• Find ways to interact and give back to the community.

This should be a given anyway - for the shop owners and the police officers.

• Stop selling Dormin, a sleeping capsule, and other items that can be misused to get high.

good idea

• Retain a black-owned security company to protect the store.

Assuming the shop owner pays for a security company anyway, employing people from the community he is serving is not only an excellent way to engage with the community in a positive way, but would also help protect his store in the long run.

 

[zorq]

I am mostly with Derec on this. This is a stupid protest.

The last request demanding a "black owned" security company is actually pretty racist. I might discriminate in my choice of service providers based on the quality of the owner's character, but why should I discriminate based on the owner's skin color?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I am mostly with Derec on this. This is a stupid protest.

The last request demanding a "black owned" security company is actually pretty racist. I might discriminate in my choice of service providers based on the quality of the owner's character, but why should I discriminate based on the owner's skin color?

And why is the store responsible in the first place? The only thing they did is report his robbery. In other words, the protesters consider reporting being robbed by black people to be unacceptable behavior.

This is no doubt being egged on by somebody whose position in life is from stirring up racial hatred.

 

[thebeave]

This is absurd. The store is an innocent victim in all this, are they not?

Imagine someone walks into your own house and starts stealing your stuff while you're there. He threatens you and your family and takes some of your shit. You call 911, the cops find the guy walking down the street, and they end up killing him in the scuffle. Later, you're being harrassed at your own home by the robber's family and friends, and they expect you to pay homage to the guy who broke into your house and threatened you. What the fuck? I thought "don't blame the victim" was a mantra of the left. Now it looks like there's an expectation that the victim has to basically worship the offender!! What the hell happened?!

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

It's amazing that the store "caved" to all of the demands when they allegedly had done nothing wrong. But why let that fact stop anyone from pointing to the uppity niggers "somebody" stirring up "racial hatred" for personal gain?

 

[RVonse]

This might be a racist thing for me to say, but at this point how do you ignore the truth? This kind of campaign is exactly what promotes "white flight". Rather than forgive and forget, the blacks now feel a need for a ceremony every year to celebrate how they rioted and pilfered a community over a petty thief.

Just who in their right mind would ever want anything to do with Ferguson at this point?!! If I were a white individual who lived in Ferguson, I would be selling (at any price) and moving out so fast it would make your head spin. Who the hell wants to live in the midst of all that crap! And I would be seriously thinking the same if I owned the store too. Probably everything that guy has worked for in his entire life now going down the tubes.

The whites will let the blacks have that community... they have conquered it now. And we can all watch and notice how all the real estate prices in that location plummet to a low point where homes will not be given away. Causing the black community to become even poorer than it is already is. I guess it is what the blacks want.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Imagine someone walks into your own house and starts stealing your stuff while you're there.

Now imagine the someone that walked into your own house was actually invited in by you and he actually did not steal any of your stuff, but was instead there to collect the money you owed him for some pot he sold you and instead you called the cops on him and lied to the cops about him stealing from you. And then the cops killed him in spite of the fact that he was unarmed and posed no life threatening danger to the cop.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Imagine someone walks into your own house and starts stealing your stuff while you're there.

Now imagine the someone that walked into your own house was actually invited in by you and he actually did not steal any of your stuff, but was instead there to collect the money you owed him for some pot he sold you and instead you called the cops on him and lied to the cops about him stealing from you. And then the cops killed him.

Is that what happened?

Is that any justification for this protest against the store owner if that is what happened?

 

[Axulus]

Imagine someone walks into your own house and starts stealing your stuff while you're there.

Now imagine the someone that walked into your own house was actually invited in by you and he actually did not steal any of your stuff, but was instead there to collect the money you owed him for some pot he sold you and instead you called the cops on him and lied to the cops about him stealing from you. And then the cops killed him.

Or imagine that there was a pedophile ring going on at that store and Michael was actually there to expose it, and the owner called the cops and falsely accused him of robbery in order to stay hidden.

I can came up with all sorts of conspiracy theories.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

This might be a racist thing for me to say, but ...

 

[Axulus]

Imagine someone walks into your own house and starts stealing your stuff while you're there.

Now imagine the someone that walked into your own house was actually invited in by you and he actually did not steal any of your stuff, but was instead there to collect the money you owed him for some pot he sold you and instead you called the cops on him and lied to the cops about him stealing from you. And then the cops killed him.

Is that what happened?

Is that any justification for this protest against the store owner if that is what happened?

There is no evidence other than a misleading edited video released by a "documentary" maker with an agenda, and plenty of counter evidence:

But one day after the Times published Pollock's footage, the filmmaker's bombshell scoop started showing cracks around the edges. Jay Kanzler, the attorney representing the Ferguson Market and its employees, accused Pollock editing the August 9 surveillance footage in order to exclude the moment where the store clerks rejected Brown's attempt to trade the bag of weed. Kanzler vowed Sunday to release the full version of the tape on Monday.

And Monday afternoon, the longer version was indeed released by none other than St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch, the same prosecutor who presided over the grand jury investigation into Brown's death.

“It’s not as though [the surveillance footage] was hidden away somewhere, as this fellow with his video project was trying to say,” McCulloch said during a press conference. If fact, McCulloch claimed that the video of Brown's 1:13 a.m. visit to the Ferguson Market had been deemed "inadmissible and irrelevant." His prosecutors never showed it to the grand jury.

McCulloch pulled no punches during the press conference. He called Pollock's film a "pretty pathetic attempt at a video production."

“This is a clear attempt to distort this and turn it into something it isn’t," said the prosecutor. "It’s very clear there was no transaction between Mr. Brown and the store employees, and to suggest he’s coming back to get what he bartered for is just stupid."

McCulloch's remarks bring us back to the bag of weed. Because if Brown did not actually trade the bag of weed for the cigarillos, then Pollock's conclusion — that Brown returned to Ferguson Market to finish the deal and pick up his items — falls apart completely.

...

"This whole ugly issue has been brought back into the forefront because a documentary filmmaker made an unfounded and baseless claim that the folks at the Ferguson Market exchanged cigarillos and two sodas for a bag of marijuana. That is 100 percent false," said the attorney.

Kanzler stated that he personally conducted extensive interviews with the store clerks who interacted with Brown on the morning of August 9. While Brown tried to barter a bag of weed for the boxes of cigarillos, Kanzler says, the clerks didn't accept the trade. Kanzler says that Pollock edited out the parts where Brown appeared to be arguing with the clerks.

Crucially, Brown appears to retrieve the bag of weed before leaving the store. As evidence, Kanzler points out that the video shows Brown walking out carrying an object in his left hand.

https://m.riverfronttimes.com/newsb...back-protests-follow-selectively-edited-video

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Is that what happened?

Is that any justification for this protest against the store owner if that is what happened?

There is no evidence other than a misleading edited video released by a "documentary" maker with an agenda, and plenty of counter evidence:

But one day after the Times published Pollock's footage, the filmmaker's bombshell scoop started showing cracks around the edges. Jay Kanzler, the attorney representing the Ferguson Market and its employees, accused Pollock editing the August 9 surveillance footage in order to exclude the moment where the store clerks rejected Brown's attempt to trade the bag of weed. Kanzler vowed Sunday to release the full version of the tape on Monday.

And Monday afternoon, the longer version was indeed released by none other than St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch, the same prosecutor who presided over the grand jury investigation into Brown's death.

“It’s not as though [the surveillance footage] was hidden away somewhere, as this fellow with his video project was trying to say,” McCulloch said during a press conference. If fact, McCulloch claimed that the video of Brown's 1:13 a.m. visit to the Ferguson Market had been deemed "inadmissible and irrelevant." His prosecutors never showed it to the grand jury.

McCulloch pulled no punches during the press conference. He called Pollock's film a "pretty pathetic attempt at a video production."

“This is a clear attempt to distort this and turn it into something it isn’t," said the prosecutor. "It’s very clear there was no transaction between Mr. Brown and the store employees, and to suggest he’s coming back to get what he bartered for is just stupid."

McCulloch's remarks bring us back to the bag of weed. Because if Brown did not actually trade the bag of weed for the cigarillos, then Pollock's conclusion — that Brown returned to Ferguson Market to finish the deal and pick up his items — falls apart completely.

...

"This whole ugly issue has been brought back into the forefront because a documentary filmmaker made an unfounded and baseless claim that the folks at the Ferguson Market exchanged cigarillos and two sodas for a bag of marijuana. That is 100 percent false," said the attorney.

Kanzler stated that he personally conducted extensive interviews with the store clerks who interacted with Brown on the morning of August 9. While Brown tried to barter a bag of weed for the boxes of cigarillos, Kanzler says, the clerks didn't accept the trade. Kanzler says that Pollock edited out the parts where Brown appeared to be arguing with the clerks.

Crucially, Brown appears to retrieve the bag of weed before leaving the store. As evidence, Kanzler points out that the video shows Brown walking out carrying an object in his left hand.

https://m.riverfronttimes.com/newsb...back-protests-follow-selectively-edited-video

That is indeed what the store's attorney claimed. Here's the documentary maker's response:

Pollock responded by calling St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch a “master of deception” and standing by the video shown in his documentary “Stranger Fruit.”

“He’s trying to make it seem like I did something that I didn’t,” Pollock said of McCulloch on Monday in a phone interview. “He’s a master at deception, I’ll give him that, and he tricked the world for a long time, but he can’t trick us now. Because anybody who sees that video knows exactly what they see.”

The documentary, which premiered Saturday, includes earlier and previously unseen surveillance footage showing Brown inside the store at 1:14 a.m. getting what appears to be two drinks from a cooler, then going to the counter and requesting cigarillos. The clerk puts the drinks and cigarillos in a bag.

Brown gives something to a clerk, who appears to sniff it. A second clerk also sniffs what appears to be a small bag. Brown starts to leave but then returns to the counter, talks to the clerks and leaves without the bag containing the drinks and cigarillos.

Pollock said he believes the footage shows Brown trading a small amount of marijuana in exchange for the cigarillos. Pollock reasons Brown returned 10 hours later to pick up the bag of cigarillos that he simply had set aside earlier not to steal cigarillos as police claimed.

The grainy unedited footage, which Ferguson Market attorney Jay Kanzler also released, shows a clerk pulling both boxes of cigarillos from the bag after Brown leaves and putting them back on a shelf. Another worker takes the drinks back toward the cooler.

Pollock said those actions are not relevant.

“I didn’t edit the exchange,” Pollock said. “I decided to end my scene after Michael left the store because after that it is irrelevant what happened to the (cigarillos) and it is irrelevant what they (the clerks) did with them. The exchange is over, they had the weed, and then he decided to leave the store. He did not rob the store.”

Pollock said the clerks lied because they didn’t want to admit to involvement in a drug deal. But McCulloch said there was no evidence the workers did anything wrong.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Imagine someone walks into your own house and starts stealing your stuff while you're there.

Now imagine the someone that walked into your own house was actually invited in by you and he actually did not steal any of your stuff, but was instead there to collect the money you owed him for some pot he sold you and instead you called the cops on him and lied to the cops about him stealing from you. And then the cops killed him.

Or imagine that there was a pedophile ring going on at that store and Michael was actually there to expose it, and the owner called the cops and falsely accused him of robbery in order to stay hidden.

I can came up with all sorts of conspiracy theories.

So could thebeave. So can I. Thanks for further illustrating the point.