Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) in Peterborough, N.H., July 8, 2019 (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren yesterday tweeted:

5 years ago Michael Brown was murdered by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael was unarmed yet he was shot 6 times. I stand with activists and organizers who continue the fight for justice for Michael. We must confront systemic racism and police violence head on. — Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) August 9, 2019

This is an outright lie, one day after Warren complained of the dangers of rhetoric.

Michael Brown was not murdered. Michael Brown was shot by officer Darren Wilson in an act of self-defense. This is why the grand jury declined to indict Wilson for murder or manslaughter, and it was also the conclusion of the Obama administration’s Department of Justice.


“Every police officer in America should be offended by Sen. Warren’s ill-informed, inflammatory tweet today,” Jeff Roorda of the St. Louis Police Officers Association told me via email. “Holding a would-be cop killer out as some sort of victim or worse yet, a hero, does no justice to the truth or to reconciliation. Her careless words disqualify her from fitness to serve impartially as commander-in-chief.”


“I was a Democratic Missouri State Representative for 8 years,” Roorda also wrote. “But, I’m sick of uninformed members of my party attacking cops. It’s just wrong.”

Attempts to contact Senator Warren’s campaign by phone and email were not returned.