A St. Louis-area police officer who’s been working in Ferguson falsely accused a group of protestors of shooting at police, said Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson holds a racial “double standard,” and asserted that he would like to punch attorney general Eric Holder, the St. Louis Riverfront Times reports via a survey of the officer’s Twitter posts.
The Riverfront Times appears to have noticed Sgt. Mike Weston’s account when Weston said that a group of individuals tear-gassed in their own backyard last week had fired gunshots at police. A Times reporter who witnessed and recorded the incident says none of the protestors were armed. Weston admitted he could not support the accusation when contacted by the reporter—and wasn’t even at the scene he was describing:
“There were shots being fired some yards, maybe not this particular one.”
Weston then admitted that he wasn’t in the group of police officers that was marching down the street and firing tear gas into yards. He said he was in the back closer to the command center, several blocks away.
The Times also found since-deleted tweets by Weston in which he says he’s considering seeking out Eric Holder to punch him, accuses Ron Johnson of practicing a racial “double standard” in Ferguson, and characterizes Johnson’s approach to protests as “Hug a Thug.” Weston confirmed to the Times that the Twitter account in question was his.
