CNN Anchor Don Lemon Downplays Alleged Robbery Video to Perpetuate 'Gentle Giant' Myth

CNN Anchor Don Lemon Downplays Alleged Robbery Video to Perpetuate 'Gentle Giant' Myth

This week, CNN anchor Don Lemon sympathized with looters and rioters in St. Louis, and on Friday, he tried to diminish Michael Brown’s alleged robbery of a convenience store.

Still trying to perpetuate the false “gentle giant” narrative, Lemon, with his dismissive tone toward Brown’s alleged robbery and violent confrontation with a store clerk, was essentially trying to tell viewers, “nothing to see here.”

The Ferguson police officer who shot and killed Brown over the weekend did not know that Brown was wanted for robbery when he first stopped him (though he allegedly saw cigars in his hand and later suspected that Brown was the perpetrator Ferguson police were looking for), but the video of Brown’s alleged robbery depicts someone who is anything but an angelic “gentle giant.”

Appearing on Brooke Baldwin’s show, Lemon said the video was “interesting” and asked, “Why would he go up to a counter if he’s stealing something? I don’t know. It’s just weird.”

Lemon then claimed, “it’s hard to really tell what’s going on in the video” when watching it closely.

“If you look at the still, it looks a lot worse than what it is,” he said before saying, “I’m not saying it is right to steal anything or to push anyone around or to use violence.”

Lemon then tried to minimize Brown’s alleged confrontation with the store clerk who tried to prevent Brown from walking out with the cigars. Lemon said that Brown shoved the clerk as a way of saying “get away from me, man. Get outta here.”

“It’s not like a punch that was described by police officers,” Lemon said, saying the footage was “not as dramatic.”

After then covering his tracks to say it is “not right to use physical violence,” Lemon said he could not tell from the video if Brown “pays for it at the counter.” The lawyer for Brown’s friend, though, said his client confessed to the FBI that they did steal the cigars.

“It doesn’t really say that much to do me,” Lemon insisted of the video.

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