SandyMaloneCambridge, MA – The mother of Michael Brown announced she planned to run for Ferguson city council during a panel at Harvard University on Monday night.
Lezley McSpadden declared her interest in running for office during an Institute of Politics panel that featured “Stranger Fruit,” the documentary about her son which was just released, The Harvard Crimson reported.
Stranger Fruit made headlines a year ago after the filmmaker released a segment where McSpadden explains that Michael Brown never committed a strong arm robbery of a convenience store as investigators claimed, and instead he was just dealing drugs to the employees.
Security footage obtained by Pollock shows Michael Brown in the store hours before he was killed. Pollock claims that the video shows Brown giving the store clerks marijuana in exchange for two boxes of cigarillos.
“There was some type of exchange, for one thing, for another,” Lesley McSpadden says.
Michael Brown left the store without the cigarillos, in what the filmmaker claims was the employees holding onto it for Brown.
However, NY Times reported that Jay Kanzler, the store’s attorney, says that Pollock’s narrative is all fabricated. “There was no transaction,” Mr. Kanzler said. “There was no understanding. No agreement. Those folks didn’t sell him cigarillos for pot. The reason he gave it back is he was walking out the door with unpaid merchandise and they wanted it back.”
The full security footage was later released which showed that the Stranger Fruit filmmakers had actually edited the security camera footage to cut out the part where the store employees threw Brown’s drugs back at him.
Following the release of a film where they are openly lying to people about the Michael Brown shooting, McSpadden is using the publicity to run for city council.
“What I’m contemplating is running for city council,” McSpadden told the packed room, which responded with wild applause.
She said that running for political office would be part of her broader advocacy efforts on behalf of her 18-year-old son, who was fatally shot by police in a highly controversial incident in 2014.
Black Lives Matter launched its cause on the back of misreporting that initially followed the Michael Brown shooting. “Hands up, don’t shoot” became the rallying cry of hundreds of protesters who have rioted and burned cities since Brown’s death.
Initial reports that Brown had his hands up were eventually proven false, and it was determined that Brown was attempting to kill Officer Wilson after Brown committed a robbery of the store.
Officer Wilson was cleared of wrongdoing by a grand jury and a DOJ investigation under the Obama administration.
McSpadden told the panel she’s running for office to save somebody else’s child.
“We’re pushing forward and we’re coming through,” McSpadden said. “We have to get behind people that look like us and into elected seats so that they can really do what’s right in our community. I’m going to start with me when I run for city council.”
“We’re seeing new people being elected, but will it change what happened then? No. But we can change the course of what may happen tomorrow and what is happening now,” she said.
There was no formal campaign plan in place as of yet, and McSpadden’s announcement seemed prompted by attorney Benjamin Crump, who was also on the panel, The Harvard Crimson reported.