Through deceptive coverage, CNN fans racial unrest and incites rioting in places like Ferguson. Then CNN reports on the violence it incites, which brings it more ad revenue.
CNN’s deception recently bore fruit when a police officer was attacked by protesters in Ferguson, suffering a “severe brain injury” that may result in his death. Ferguson is the place where Michael Brown attacked a police officer in 2014, and attempted to take his gun, which resulted in the police officer shooting Brown in self-defense. The police officer was later cleared by both local prosecutors and the progressive Civil Rights Division of the Obama Justice Department. But CNN peddled the lie that Brown was shot with his hands up, saying “don’t shoot.” As Newsbusters notes, “‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot Never Happened,” even though “news outlets, left-wing blogs and liberal politicians joined in advancing the false narrative,” such as when “CNN panelists held their hands up in solidarity with protesters” falsely claiming that Brown was shot with his hands up.
That false claim triggered rioting, looting, and arson in cities such as Ferguson. But in 2015 the Obama Justice Department issued a report debunking that claim, noting on page 82 that “the shots fired” by the police officer “were in self-defense.” As The Washington Post reported in 2015, Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson “was justified in shooting Brown,” according to the Civil Rights Division of the Obama Justice Department. “It was reasonable for police Officer Darren Wilson to be afraid of Michael Brown in their encounter last summer, a Justice Department investigation concluded,” admitted the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
CNN continues to indirectly peddle the lie today. As Virgil Brown, an African-American, notes, “The Michael Brown LIE that spread around the world—’hands up don’t shoot’—is still causing chaos a decade later! It’s infuriating how this misinformation continues to fuel division and unrest.”
Yesterday, CNN reported on the attack its own coverage helped inspire (without taking any responsibility for the attack), and falsely tells readers that Brown was just casually “walking on the street with his friend” when he was shot by a police officer, even though CNN admits that “The officer, Darren Wilson, was cleared of federal civil rights violations and criminal wrongdoing” (if a cop shot someone casually walking on the street, he’d be prosecuted for murder, not “cleared of federal civil rights violations and criminal wrongdoing”).
The CNN article says:
A Ferguson police officer is “fighting for his life” after being assaulted during protests on Friday night, following several days of events marking the 10-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s killing by an officer in the department.
Protesters were allowed to block multiple streets near the Ferguson Police Department…until some people began “violently” shaking the fence at the police station, Chief Troy Doyle said at a Saturday news conference.
“We did not react. We stayed here, let them shake the fence,” said the chief. “That happened several times throughout the night up until the point that they broke the bottom portions of our fence, they destroyed property on our police department’s parking lot.”
At that point, Doyle deployed his arrest team to make arrests for destruction of property. The team was assaulted by several protesters and one of the officers, identified by police as Travis Brown, suffered a severe brain injury, Doyle said.
“He is at an area hospital right now, fighting for his life,” said the chief, who was visibly emotional during the news conference….
Friday marked 10 years to the day since Michael Brown, 18, was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer on August 9, 2014, while walking on the street with his friend. Officers left his body lying in the street under the hot sun for four and a half hours – long enough for local children and his family to see him lying there.
The officer, Darren Wilson, was cleared of federal civil rights violations and criminal wrongdoing.
The riots and protests that CNN helped incite in Ferguson in 2014 cut property values in that predominantly-black city by more than half, harming black people most. More than two-thirds of Ferguson residents are black. Many businesses in Ferguson were destroyed during the 2014 protests.
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