FERGUSON, Mo. (KMOX) - After U.S. Rep. Cori Bush claimed on Twitter that she and others were shot at while protesting in Ferugson in 2014, the police chief at the time is calling her story completely false.
Former Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson led the department from 2010 until he resigned in March of 2015. He was in charge during the shooting death of Michael Brown Jr. by former officer Darren Wilson in August of 2014, and the protests that followed.
He says Bush's claim that "white supremacists would hide behind a hill ... and shoot at us" is a "bald-face lie."
The current Ferguson chief, Frank McCall Jr. told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he he wasn't aware of any incident on record like the one Bush described.
"It's frightening to think people are going to believe that stuff," Jackson says. "Now we have, all of a sudden, white supremacists hiding behind hills, shooting at protestors? Not hitting them, of course, but shooting at them. That's just absurd, it didn't happen. It's a lie, it's just a bunch of lies, her saying she was brutalized by the police during the Ferguson riots. It just didn't happen."
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Jackson also complimented the police officers who worked during many of those protests that turned into violent night of civil unrest, looting and an instance where two officers were shot by man seen hiding behind a hill near protesters.
"Those extended for months and we never seriously injured anybody," Jackson says. "And that's something to really take note of because if we really did want to brutalize people when they're burning and looting and throwing rocks and shooting and the things they were doing, that would have been a genuine opportunity to use physical force had we wanted to."
The congresswoman's office put out a statement saying in support of Bush's claim:
“While on the frontlines of the Ferguson Uprising, Congresswoman Bush and other activists were shot at by white supremacist vigilantes. The question we need to ask is why white supremacists feel empowered to open-carry rifles, incite violence, and put Black lives at risk across our country."
Bush rose to prominence in St. Louis during the aftermath of Brown's death as a leading activist against racial injustice.
Jackson penned a book, Policing Ferguson, Policing America, which was released in 2017.
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