Hands Up, Hands Down: A Decade of Ignorance

Those with political motivations manipulated the tragedy in several ways. They claimed that Brown had tried to surrender, raising his hands and pleading with Wilson, “Hands up, don’t shoot!” but the policeman still wantonly gunned him down. That fed the narrative that the killing was part of an epidemic of police killing unarmed blacks in America. And this, in turn, reinforced a theme that the country is “systemically racist” and oppressive.

Each of these contentions was false. Some who repeated them didn’t know better, while others deliberately advanced the untruths to bring about political change. Journalists and Democratic members of Congress, for example, beclowned themselves by raising their hands in mock surrender poses. They did not apologize after the DOJ report concluded that Brown had never surrendered. Nor did they admit fault after Attorney General Eric Holder said that it was “essential to question how such a strong alternative version of events was able to take hold so swiftly, and be accepted so readily.”

Not that it would have mattered. Ferguson burned and ten years later has not recovered. The mayhem that began in Missouri eventually engulfed the country and led to crime spikes and cultural chaos that persist to this day.