Michael Brown’s stepfather, Louis Head, was captured on video that’s since gone viral, calling on a crowd of Ferguson protesters to take revenge and burn down the community.
Mr. Head, on the heels of a grand jury decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson, yelled amid a crowd: “Burn this [expletive] down!”
The New York Times first posted the video that showed both parents’ emotions — his mother, Lesley McSpadden, covering her face and sobbing, and his stepfather, comforting her while jumping on top of a car in the middle of a crowd of angry protesters, screaming and repeating his mantra to burn.
Shortly after, Ferguson erupted in violent protests that led to the arrests of roughly four dozen, the burning of 12 buildings and the firing of hundreds of gunshots. At least 18 were injured, also.
The Brown family attorney, Benjamin Crump, appealed to Ferguson watchers to give the stepfather and mother — who also issued a curse-laden condemnation of the grand jury ruling — some slack.
“Raw emotion,” he said, Yahoo! News reported. “Not appropriate at all. Complete inappropriate. [But] don’t condemn them for being human.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.