The NYT assassinates Michael Brown all over again.

[RandySF]

As a boy, Michael was a handful. When his parents put up a security gate, he would try to climb it. When they left out pens and pencils, he would use them to write on the wall. He used to tap on the ground, so his parents got him a drum set; his father played the drums. He grew into a reserved young man around people he did not know, but joking and outgoing with those close to him.

Continue reading the main story
After his parents split up, he stayed with his mother though he remained close to all of his family, who lived near one another in north St. Louis County.

In the ninth grade at McCluer High School in Florissant, Mr. Brown was accused of stealing an iPod. His mother said she went to the school, eventually showing a receipt to prove the iPod was his. He left McCluer and went to two other high schools before going to Normandy for most of his final two years.

When his mother moved out of the Normandy District, he moved in with his paternal grandmother so he could remain at that school. But he continued to alternate between his parents and maternal grandmother.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/25/us/michael-brown-spent-last-weeks-grappling-with-lifes-mysteries.html

[nolabear]

1. No they didn't. He sounds like a regular kid. I thought it was pretty good.

And his parents clearly were good people who worked hard to raise him well. I don't get the "assassination" part here at all, unless he has to be portrayed as a saint rather than an American kid.

[Enrique]

3. I agree

the NYT talked to his friends and his family and published a story about what he was like, on the day of his funeral. Seems like an appropriate thing to do and it's the only such story I've seen.

[pscot]

2. Grappling with life's mysteries?

The reporter is a young, black male. The tone of the story is respectful and sympathetic. I don't see it.

[Rex]

4. So when will the do a full report on Mr. Wilson?

Oh right...NEVER...MUST keep to the narrative...

All these articles on Brown...yet NOTHING on the cop?

Pathetic.

[Enrique]

5. not true

we know about Wilson's troubled childhood, we know about his mother's fraud conviction, we know about his first police gig that ended with the police being disbanded. That's just off the top of my head.

[Rex]

6. I am comparing the coverage of Brown to the coverage of Wilson

not even close.

[Enrique]

7. "How did he get to be a police officer?"

same newspaper, the NYT, same day, a very similar background story about Wilson as about Brown.

They devote quite a bit of the profile to his mother's crime, including this quote by his former neighbor:

Years later, Ms. Finney said she was stunned when she saw her former neighbor appear outside the old house in a police uniform. “My husband and I thought, ‘How did he get to be a police officer?’ ”

[Rex]

8. Link?

[Enrique]

9. "Darren Wilson Was Low-Profile Officer With Unsettled Early Days"

like I said, a similar profile as the one this OP calls an "assassination" of Brown, with the exception that the Wilson story includes a lot about his mother's crime, and a quote linking that crime to his fitness as an officer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/25/us/darren-wilsons-unremarkable-past-offers-few-clues-into-ferguson-shooting.html

[Rex]

10. Thanks, that will be the first article I've seen on Wilson. nt

nt

[nolabear]

12. Thank you! I looked all over the place for something on him.

He sounds like his childhood was horrible, much worse than Brown's. I say that because it's so easy for people to imagine the black kid coming from bad circumstances and the white kid having a "normal" background. I don't think this guy is the devil. I do think he's guilty.

[bklyncowgirl]

11. I didn't see that in this story. It seems an objective even poignant profile.

Michael Brown sounds like a normal kid to me and that what makes this so sad.