WALL STREET JOURNAL
by Bret Stephens
March 9, 2015

Here’s a story for the media: a community in which honest people are afraid to tell the truth…Yet if anyone was openly and shamelessly mocking the criminal-justice system, it was so much of the media itself, credulously accepting or sanctimoniously promoting the double fable of Ferguson: that a “gentle giant” had been capriciously slain by a trigger-happy cop; and that a racist justice system stood behind that cop. At least half that fable was put to rest last week by an exhaustive Justice Department report. It demolishes the lie that Brown was shot in the back, along with the lie that he was surrendering to Mr. Wilson, hands in the air, when he was shot. It confirms that Brown physically assaulted the officer, who had good grounds to fear for his life. And it confirms that eyewitnesses either lied to investigators or refused to be interviewed out of fear of local vigilantes. READ MORE SUBSCRIPTION CONTENT