The fact-checking website PolitiFact refused to use its signature Truth-O-Meter to rate the false claim by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) that the death of Michael Brown was a “murder.”
PolitiFact bucked other prominent fact-checkers in the mainstream media, such as the Washington Post, by refusing to declare the presidential candidates’ words untruthful. Both politicians published tweets describing police officer Darren Wilson’s killing of Brown in Ferguson, Mo., as a “murder.”
“There is no question that Wilson killed Brown, and there’s strong evidence that it was not accidental,” PolitiFact wrote. “In discussing the case with legal experts, however, we found broad consensus that ‘murder’ was the wrong word to use—a legal point likely familiar to Harris, a longtime prosecutor, and Warren, a law professor.”
The site added, however, that while both presidential candidates were contradicting the consensus among “legal experts,” it would not be fair to subject them to the Truth-O-Meter because of the complicated questions surrounding police shootings.
“Because the significance of Harris’ and Warrens’ [sic] use of the word is open to some dispute, we won’t be rating their tweets on the Truth-O-Meter,” PolitiFact said. – READ MORE