Protests broke out in Ferguson, Mo., on Sunday night after previously unseen surveillance video from a convenience store was released showing 18-year-old Michael Brown in the final hours of his life.
Roughly 100 protestors gathered outside the market Sunday night, causing it to close, according to reports. Police cleared the area and there appeared to be no injuries.
The video — captured hours before Brown was killed by a Missouri police officer — was part of director Jason Pollock’s film “Stranger Fruit,” which debuted at South by Southwest in Austin over the weekend.
The surveillance footage shows Brown, who was black, exchanging marijuana for cigarillos with the clerks of a Ferguson, Mo., store very early on the morning of his death.
Brown was accused later that day, August 9, 2014, of robbing the store.
St. Louis County Police have said the video’s authenticity cannot be confirmed, but “if it did occur, the incident is still irrelevant to our investigation.”
Authorities say Brown was stopped by Officer Darren Wilson for walking in the street, not because of a reported robbery. The two then got into an altercation that ended with Brown being fatally shot six times.
An attorney representing the market, Ferguson Market & Liquor, says the video has been edited and false implies an exchange of marijuana for store merchandise. The full video is expected to be released sometime Monday.
Attorney Jay Kanlzer also claimed authorities and Brown’s family had long had the newly surfaced video.
The market’s co-owner also reasserted his claim that Brown later returned to the store that day and robbed it of a package of cigarillos. That video footage released by police in the aftermath of Brown’s death shows him strong-arming his way out of the store. He then has his fatal encounter with Wilson moments later.
Wilson, who is white, was eventually cleared of all wrongdoing and not indicted by a grand jury. The Justice Department also concluded that Wilson shot Brown in self defense.
