Probe can’t offer clarity
Conflicting details fill testimony; o∞cer defends his actions
ferguson, mo. » The witnesses were seizing a mid summer Saturday. They were waking up from naps after leisurely breakfasts. They were fixing gutters and heading to their afternoon jobs. Theywere listening to gospel music in their cars. Andthen came the screech of tires that snapped their attention to the street.
One image is consistent in their recollections: a young black man in yellow socks in a confrontation with awhite police officer driving a police SUV.
But no clear picture ofwhat truly transpired emerges from thousands of pages of grand jury testimony released this week by St. Louis County prosecutors. The witness accounts provide new and often conflicting details aboutwhat happened leading up to the moment when police Officer Darren Wilson shot dead 18-year-old Michael Brown.
After a three-month investigation involving 60 witnesses and 70 hours of testimony, the grand jury found Monday there that therewas insufficient evidence to
charge Wilson with a crime.
Testimony failed to clarify some of the most crucial details of the interaction between Wilson and Brown.
Witnesses differed on critical aspects of the physical struggle, as well as what Brown was doing with his hands — whether he had them up in surrender as his supporters have insisted — when the fatal bullets struck.
County prosecutors have laid out an official version of events, which closely tracks with Wilson’s. The officer, after urging Brown and a friend to stop jaywalking, cut off their path with his vehicle when he realized Brown matched the description of a suspect wanted in connection with a theft at a convenience store.
There was an altercation at the window, and Wilson squeezed off two gunshots.
Brown then ran, with Wilson in pursuit. Brown swiveled around and moved toward the officer — provoking Wilson into firing a final barrage of gunfire, according to this official rendering.
Wilson told grand jurors of three minutes of hot confusion, shattered glass, a misfired gun, fear and a look of anger that came across Brown’s face that Wilson said made him “look like a demon.” Wilson said he hasn’t recovered from the shock.
“I’m just kind of in shock of what just happened,” he testified. “I really didn’t believe it because, like I said, the whole thing started over ‘Will you just walk on the sidewalk?’ ”
That was the moment when Wilson said he realized Brown matched the description of the robbery suspect and decided to confront the young men singlehandedly, backing up his vehicle to block Brown’s path.
Wilson said he tried to open his vehicle door, Brown pushed it shut, and then he pushed Brown with the door before Brown reached in and hit him in the face.
Itwas “just like some kind of tug of war or something was going on,” one witness said.
Wilson testified that he was thinking, “What do I do not to get beaten inside my car?”
“I drew my gun,” Wilson told the grand jury. “I said, ‘ Get back, or I’m going to shoot you.’ He immediately grabs my gun and says, ‘You are too much of a (expletive) to shoot me.’ ”
The officer said he felt the gun twisting down on his hip, “and that point I thought Iwas getting shot.”
Wilson then got off a shot that went through Brown’s hand from a distance of 6 to 9 inches, a pathologist at the St. Louis County medical examiner’s office determined. It was the only bullet that hit Brown at close range, spilling blood that stained Wilson’s pants leg and the interior driver’s side door handle. DNA from both men was found on the gun, said the DNA technical leader at the St. Louis County crime lab.
The fatal shots came moments later.
Wilson interview
On Tuesday, Wilson spoke publicly for the first time since the shooting, saying in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that he couldn’t have done anything differently in his confrontation with Brown to have prevented the shooting death.
Wilson offered details of the Aug. 9 shooting and says he felt like itwas his duty to chase Brown after a confrontation at his police vehicle. Asked about witness accounts that Brown at one point turned toward Wilson and put his hands up, he responded, “That would be incorrect.”
Wilson told Stephanopoulos he has a clean conscience because “I know I did my job right.”
The material presented to the grand jurors included forensic evidence, media reports and expert testimony. Transcripts show prosecutors, who led the inquiry, grilling eyewitnesses, testing their memories and asking for minute details. Often the specifics clearly recalled by one were entirely at odds with the clear memories of another.
For example, some described a physical struggle inside the SUV, while at least one witness said the whole conflict took place entirely outside. Some said Brown, after spinning around to face Wilson, staggered toward him, while others described it as a “charge.”
While some recounted that Brown had his hands up in surrender when he was killed, others described his hands as clutching his torso or hovering at shoulder-level.
In some cases, inconsistencies seemed to reflect the fact that witnesses saw only part of the incident. And others told entirely contradictory or made-up stories and were called out by prosecutors, who went to great lengths to discredit some witnesses.
One witness described Brown facing the officer on his knees and had previously said he heard Brown pleading for his life.
“What you are saying you saw isn’t forensically possible based on the evidence,” a prosecutor said. The witness later asked to leave. Anotherwoman gave two statements to police but told the grand jury she didn’t see the shooting.
“The statement that I made, it was with what my boyfriend ... saw,” she admitted. “I just felt like I want to be part of something.”