A prominent African-American minister has come out swinging against the parents of Michael Brown, after his incensed father labeled the police officer who fatally shot his son "a murderer."
"I may be the only one in America who does not grieve for Michael Brown's parents," the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
"The reality is Michael Brown is dead because of Michael Brown. It's not Officer Darren Wilson's fault."
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In an interview with CNN, Brown's parents were asked about Wilson's declaration that he has a "clear conscience" about shooting their son in Ferguson, Mo. — an event that triggered weeks of racial unrest last summer.
"He’s a murderer," Michael Brown Sr. shot back. "He understood exactly what he was doing. You know, he didn’t have a second thought, a pushback thought or nothing. He was intending to kill someone."
But Peterson — president and founder of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND) and host of the syndicated radio program, "The Jesse Lee Peterson Show" — tore into that scenario.
"[Brown] attacked the police officer in his car, tried to take his gun, the gun went off, and Michael's blood is all over the place," Peterson said.
"According to the report and witnesses, Michael, after running away from the officer, came back after him with a full force charge toward him. Michael Brown is dead because of Michael Brown.
"His parents are also hypocrites because they didn't raise Michael in the right way. They failed him. They failed to raise a decent citizen. They are in part responsible for the death of Michael Brown as well. [They] should be made to feel embarrassed for the way they raised their son."
Wilson was exonerated by a grand jury last week. He has quit the Ferguson police force in a bid to help the racially torn community heal.
But the Rev. Al Sharpton said Sunday that "the fight ain't over" in the wake of the grand jury declining to indict a white police officer in the killing of a black teenager.
Speaking at the Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis where Brown's funeral was held in August, Sharpton said Wilson's resignation is not enough.
Peterson told Steve Malzberg:
"America has set up situations like this all over the country because these thugs are going to feel as though they could go out and harass officers, fight with them, call them racists and get away with it.
"No one in the black community, for the most part, [is] telling the truth about what really happened there."
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