Given a national platform on tonight's All In with Chris Hayes, Democratic State Senator Jamilah Nasheed (Mo.) charged that the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer was an "execution-style" killing. [WATCH video and READ the relevant transcript following page break]
At no point, however, did host Chris Hayes object to such rhetoric and protest that the facts have not been established in an impartial investigation. Producers and Mr. Hayes should well have known, however, that Ms. Nasheed might make such a heated charge on air. In an August 10 tweet she condemned Brown's shooting as an "execution-style murder" (see embedded tweet below the page break):
CHRIS HAYES: Now, there was a decision that was announced today by the Ferguson, I believe it was the Ferguson Police Department, that they will not release the name of the officer in question. The reason they gave for that is that there had been a barrage of threats on social media, police say that they're getting inundated with threatening phone calls and there's a fear for the safety of this officer, which seems like an understandable worry. At the same time, it does seem there's a fairly compelling public right to know the name of an officer who committed this act, it appears while on public duty. What is your reaction to the police department's announcement today?
State Sen. JAMILAH NASHEED (D-Missouri) : I'm appalled. The people should have a right to know. You have -- it's unjustifiable. How can you justify killing and shooting down a man in the middle of a street, execution-style, again simply because his only crime was walking in the middle of the street wanting to visit his grandmother....
HAYES: Senator, can I ask you if you have had interactions with any of the political officials, obviously, you're a member of the Missouri State Senate. Have you had interactions, is anyone talking to or has there any kind of communication between elected officials, the mayor, the city council of Ferguson who, as far as I can tell have been remarkably absent from the aftermath of this entire thing?
I am devastated by the execution-style murder of Michael Brown. We will not stop until justice prevails. #sleeplessnight
— Jamilah Nasheed (@SenatorNasheed) August 10, 2014
