Appearing on the Steve Malzberg Show on Newsmax TV, Reverend Jesse Jackson maintained that regardless of the events prior to Michael Brown’s death, there was no instance in which the Ferguson police officer should have shot the unarmed teen.
During the contentious interview on Monday, August 18, Malzberg highlighted details in which Michael Brown allegedly attacked officer Darren Wilson, including trying to obtain his gun, but Jackson remained defiant and claimed that Malzberg was “drawing up the worst possible scenario” surrounding the shooting. [See video below.]
The back-and-forth began with Malzberg detailing the police officer’s account of the confrontation with Brown:
If in fact there was a struggle, if Michael Brown pushed the door, the police door, punched the cop in the face, struggled with him for the gun and then took off. And as one video shows, an eyewitness saying and describing that he circled back and he was charging towards the officer. And the officer felt threatened for his life and felt danger, and fired at him because A, he doesn’t know he doesn’t have a weapon. He didn’t search him, he didn’t handcuff him, he didn’t...so you don’t know see any circumstance that you know of now or that could come out that could justify what the police officer did?
The Newsmax host shot back by saying “I just gave you one that if all those facts are true I do see one.” The heated debate concluded with Malzberg and Jackson continuing to argue about what actually happened in Ferguson with Malzberg reminding his guest that “we don’t know and with all due respect you don’t know” all of the facts in the case. The interview ended with Jackson dismissing the officer’s account of what happened with Michael Brown and told Malzberg to “be for real.”
