Serendipitous: An Illuminating Conversation with a Key Witness to the Fatal Shooting in Ferguson

[madokie]

Piaget Crenshaw is an eyewitness to a killing that has garnered national attention.

Ferguson, Missouri has been on my mind all week, as it has for most people in the media. On Saturday night, I had just finished reading more articles about the killing and ensuing uproar, assigned followup content for AlterNet to publish, and went out to Barzini's in Manhattan, the local alternative to Whole Foods, to pick up some groceries and a pint of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia.

While I was paying, a young, well-dressed women stuck her head into the store and asked if she could buy something there that would only be sold in a different kind of store. We all smiled, as this immediately flagged her as an out-of-towner. We sent her to Duane Reade, two blocks south. As we walked out together, I asked where she was from.

"St. Louis," she said. "This is the first time I've been in New York."

She said she just had dinner at Carmine's, across the street, and had two friends who were still inside finishing up. As we walked back from the drugstore to Carmine's, I asked why she was in New York. She said, "Have you ever heard of Ferguson, Missouri?"

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/serendipitous-illuminating-conversation-key-witness-fatal-shooting-ferguson?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark

[murielm99]

1. He wasn't in the cop car at all. n/t

[Uncle Joe]

2. If Brown was in the car as the Police Chief contends, how did he get out?

I thought the back doors of police cruisers couldn't be opened from the inside, unless the officer unlocked them?

A local television station, in an interview with Crenshaw and Mitchell, kept returning to the statement made by the police chief that Brown was in the car when the struggle took place. But none of the witnesses saw Brown in the car, and given the quick dynamics of the moment, Brown being 6 '4" and close to 300 pounds, it seems unlikely that the police officer would have gotten Brown into the car.

Nevertheless, Chief Thomas Jackson has consistently claimed that Brown was in the car and grabbed for Darren Wilson's gun and a shot was fired. "Brown died in a dangerous struggle after trying to grab the officer’s weapon." But witnesses—including Crenshaw, Mitchell and Johnson—say it seemed a brazen act of aggression by the officer and that Brown was unarmed and not threatening.

Thanks for the thread, madokie.

[Live and Learn]

3. Doesn't support the pd's version of events at all. nt

[Cha]

4. Wow! Stars Aligned, Indeed, madokie! Here's Paiget Crenshaw with Tiffiny Mitchell on CNN..

freshwest http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5399069

Amazing how she stuck her head in the door in Barzini's(which I tell is my kind of store) in NYC and encountered Don Hazen!

[madokie]

5. It sure looks like murder in the first degree to me

Where is this cop and why is he not out front and center? I mean he was so sure what he was doing was right when he was killing this kid why isn't he out here standing behind his decision. He's a coward is my first thought to that question and the whole pd is covering for him. The hell with the people, they're just blacks anyway type mentality coming from the police. Thats what we have to change in this country starting right now with this murder.