Ron DeSantis rehashes Ferguson, Missouri, police violence in condemning ‘phony controversies’

TALLAHASSEE, FLA. 5/5/23-Gov. Ron DeSantis during a news conference after the 2023 legislative session concluded, Friday at the Capitol in Tallahassee. COLIN HACKLEY PHOTO

Gov. Ron DeSantis revived a long-ago incident in Ferguson, Missouri, dispelling “phony controversies” and “panics” put forth by the media about police brutality in the wake of the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Accepting endorsements from nearly five dozen Sheriffs in Tampa, the 2024 presidential candidate revisited an incident from 2014 to condemn the press and extol police officers mired in controversy.

“The media goes through these panics where they try to create these phony controversies. You know, they did the thing in Ferguson, Missouri, years ago where you had the guy, and all the Left in the media was saying that he put his hands up and was yelling, ‘Don’t shoot.’ And then the cop just mowed them down. That was the narrative that they had put out and it got a lot of protest. It whipped a lot and honestly, like I understand that because that would be wrong if that happened, that would be wrong,” DeSantis said.

“Well, what actually happened? Eric Holder, Attorney General under (Barack) Obama, did the investigation and they said that was a lie, there was no ‘Hands up, don’t shoot.’ And that the officer acted responsibly given the circumstances of the case and yet the media took it. They ran with it, politicians indulged it.”

DeSantis contended that he doesn’t “get caught up in these phony narratives” and is willing to “call them out on the BS.”

While AG Holder contended that “facts (did) not support the filing of criminal charges against Officer Darren Wilson in this case,” falling short of “prosecutable conduct on the part of Officer Wilson,” his remarks couldn’t be confused with exoneration of the Ferguson police department. Indeed, Holder alleged that “deep distrust and hostility often characterized interactions between police and area residents” amid a use of aggressive police tactics for “revenue generation.”

“But seen in this context — amid a highly toxic environment, defined by mistrust and resentment, stoked by years of bad feelings, and spurred by illegal and misguided practices — it is not difficult to imagine how a single tragic incident set off the city of Ferguson like a powder keg,” Holder wrote.

“In a sense, members of the community may not have been responding only to a single isolated confrontation, but also to a pervasive, corrosive, and deeply unfortunate lack of trust — attributable to numerous constitutional violations by their law enforcement officials including First Amendment abuses, unreasonable searches and seizures, and excessive and dangerous use of force; exacerbated by severely disproportionate use of these tactics against African Americans; and driven by overriding pressure from the city to use law enforcement not as a public service, but as a tool for raising revenue.”