The owner of Ferguson Market & Liquor and a documentarian are at odds over the filmmaker’s claims that Michael Brown, later fatally shot by police in the Missouri town, did not commit robbery. (David Goldman/AP)

A convenience store is disputing a claim in a documentary that previously unreleased surveillance video suggests that Michael Brown did not rob the store shortly before he was fatally shot by police in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014.

One of the filmmakers, Jason Pollock, told the New York Times that he thinks the footage shows Brown trading a small amount of marijuana for a bag of cigarillos around 1 a.m. on Aug. 9. The video does not clearly show what was exchanged, but shows Brown leaving behind the cigarillos.

Pollock reasons that Brown intended to come back later for the bag of cigarillos. But an attorney for the store and its employees said that no such transaction took place, and that Brown stole the cigarillos when he returned to the store about 10 hours later.

“There was no understanding. No agreement. Those folks didn’t sell him cigarillos for pot. The reason he gave it back is he was walking out the door with unpaid merchandise and they wanted it back,” attorney Jay Kanzler told the newspaper.

Pollock argues that the new footage challenges what authorities have said about Brown pushing a worker and taking cigarillos during the later store visit, shortly before the fatal police confrontation. Brown’s mother called it “a misunderstanding.”

Previously released surveillance video shows Brown strong-arming the store’s co-owner, Andy Patel, and pushing him as he left the store during the second visit. Patel reaffirmed his version of events on Sunday, telling the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Brown “grabbed the cigarillos and stole them.”

Brown, who was 18, was fatally shot minutes later by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Brown, who was black, was unarmed. Wilson is white.

Some of the local officials who investigated the shooting said that they did not think the new footage shed much light on the case.

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar told the Post-Dispatch that he was not surprised that Brown was in Ferguson Market & Liquor earlier in the day. Belmar said that his department focused on investigating the shooting, not the incident at the store.

Former Ferguson police chief Tom Jackson said that he had not seen the earlier surveillance video, but he thought it was unfair to connect the store to a drug transaction.

The shooting led to months of unrest and sometimes violent protests in the St. Louis suburb. A local grand jury and the Justice Department found no evidence of wrongdoing by Wilson, who resigned in November 2014.

But the shooting and protests led to scrutiny of Ferguson, resulting in a scathing Justice Department report alleging racial bias in the city’s criminal justice system.

The documentary, called “Stranger Fruit,” premiered Saturday at the South By Southwest festival in Austin.