by William A. Jacobson at legalinsurrection.com
The “hands up, don’t shoot” lie gave birth to the formal Black Lives Matter movement. Possibly the most significant social and political movement of the past decade, one that has re-shaped our country, was based on a lie that is repeated year after year after year. I’m never, ever, going to stop telling the truth about it.
Nine years ago today, Michael Brown was shot dead by policeman Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. The death created the Black Lives Matter movement, which prior to that was only a hashtag, and took it to national fame, based on the claim that Brown was shot with his “hands up” while pleading “don’t shoot.”
But the Black Lives Matter movement was birthed based up on a lie. Two lies, actually. The first was the lie about the Trayvon Martin shooting that created the hashtag – Martin was not shot because he was black while wearing a hoodie. He was shot one time by George Zimmerman while Martin was beating him to a bloody pulp mixed martial arts style and slamming his head into concrete. We covered the trial exhaustively, and Zimmerman properly was found by the jury to have acted in lawful self-defense.
- Five years after Trayvon Martin’s death, myths and lies about case live on (February 16, 2017)
- Seven years after Trayvon Martin shooting, the falsehoods, propaganda and misinformation are worse than ever (February 26, 2019)
But the Brown lie was even bigger, because it birthed both the formal movement and the movement’s overarching propaganda slogan, “hands up, don’t shoot.”
In reality, Brown was a criminal who strong-armed a local mini-mart then sucker punched Wilson who was seated in his patrol car and reached to steal Wilson’s service pistol, leading to the first shot. When Wilson exited the vehicle Brown made a second charge at Wilson, and who fired the fatal shot.
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