GOP Candidate Brandon Herrera Attempts to Debunk FBI's Account of MLK Jr's Assassination
Texas GOP House candidate and popular gun YouTuber Brandon Herrera posted a video recently, addressing the theory that the FBI assassinated Martin Luther King Jr.
Herrera tried to re-create the shot that killed King by using ballistic gel shaped like a human head and the same model rifle used in King’s murder: a Remington Model 760.
Posted on Nov. 7, the video has topped 1.2 million views.
King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 — shot while standing on a second-floor hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee.
After the shooting, a police officer discovered a .30-06 caliber rifle wrapped in a bundle across the street, which subsequently launched the biggest investigation in FBI history, according to Stanford University.
The investigation eventually led to the arrest of James Earl Ray, an escaped convict who confessed to killing King. (He later attempted to withdraw that plea, claiming it had been coerced.)
Herrera pointed out some apparent inconsistencies and unusual points surrounding the assassination, such as the apparent discrepancy between the bullet and the rifle it was supposedly fired from.
“According to modern forensic analysis, the rifling on the alleged gun used didn’t match the bullet found in Dr. King anyway. So, that’s a little strange,” Herrera remarked.
Although Herrera included a snapshot of a document referencing the inconsistency, he did not cite its source.
He also admitted that much of his speculation was based on the theories of a friend of his, another YouTuber whose channel name is Wendigoon.
Herrera claimed that on the day of King’s shooting, a big tree branch was in the way and would have made Jones’ kill shot “virtually impossible,” and that Memphis Police cut the tree down the night after the shooting to “aid the investigation.”
He did not cite his source on this point, though according to a 2018 story in The Washington Post, witnesses saw someone moving through thick bushes nearby at the time of King’s death, and Memphis public works employees later cut down those bushes, destroying a possible crime scene.
Herrera also said that the King family sued the FBI and other government agencies for their alleged involvement in the assassination, and that the family actually won.
The Washington Post story appeared to corroborate this, writing that the King family “filed a civil suit in 1999 to force more information into the public eye, and a Memphis jury ruled that the local, state and federal governments were liable for King’s death.”
In 1999, the King family won a lawsuit against Loyd Jowers, a retired cafe owner allegedly involved in a conspiracy to kill King, along with ”others, including governmental agencies,” according to The New York Times. The family was awarded $100, which they gave to charity.
“The family has long questioned Mr. Ray’s conviction and hoped the suit would change the legal and historical record of the assassination,” the Times explained.
Herrera said the FBI also sent a letter to King before his death, urging him to commit suicide and threatening to reveal unsavory facts about him.
The New York Times confirmed this, as it published the aforementioned letter in 2014. The Times said a Senate intelligence committee verified the letter had come from the FBI, as King himself had suspected.
“King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is,” the letter read. “You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation.”
While relating that part of the sordid story, Herrera reminded his audience that he is not suicidal.
Herrera, sometimes known as “The AK Guy” for his admiration of the AK-47 rifle, announced in August he is running for Congress.
“I will be challenging the establishment Republican, Tony Gonzales, for the District 23 congressional seat in the Republican primary for 2024,” he said in a YouTube video.
A strong supporter of former President Donald Trump, Herrera described himself on his campaign site as a constitutionalist, a business owner and a Second Amendment activist.
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