The AP analyzed the many witness statements presented by the prosecutors to the grand jury who made the decision not to indict Darren Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown. Here is an excerpt from the article
Ferguson grand jury papers full of inconsistencies
But Johnson also declared on TV, in a clip played for the grand jury, that Wilson fired at least one shot at his friend while Brown was running away: "It struck my friend in the back."
Johnson held to a variation of this description in his grand jury testimony, saying the shot caused Brown's body to "do like a jerking movement, not to where it looked like he got hit in his back, but I knew, it maybe could have grazed him, but he definitely made a jerking movement."
Other eyewitness accounts also were clearly wrong.
One woman, who said she was smoking a cigarette with a friend nearby, claimed she saw a second police officer in the passenger seat of Wilson's vehicle. When quizzed by a prosecutor, she elaborated: The officer was white, "middle age or young" and in uniform. She said she was positive there was a second officer — even though there was not.
Another woman testified that she saw Brown leaning through the officer's window "from his navel up," with his hand moving up and down, as if he were punching the officer. But when the same witness returned to testify again on another day, she said she suffers from mental disorder, has racist views and that she has trouble distinguishing the truth from things she had read online.
Prosecutors suggested the woman had fabricated the entire incident and was not even at the scene the day of the shooting.
Another witness had told the FBI that Wilson shot Brown in the back and then "stood over him and finished him off." But in his grand jury testimony, this witness acknowledged that he had not seen that part of the shooting, and that what he told the FBI was "based on me being where I'm from, and that can be the only assumption that I have."
The witness, who lives in the predominantly black neighborhood where Brown was killed, also acknowledged that he changed his story to fit details of the autopsy that he had learned about on TV.
"So it was after you learned that the things you said you saw couldn't have happened that way, then you changed your story about what you seen?" a prosecutor asserted.
"Yeah, to coincide with what really happened," the witness replied.
Another man, describing himself as a friend of Brown's, told a federal investigator that he heard the first gunshot, looked out his window and saw an officer with a gun drawn and Brown "on his knees with his hands in the air." He added: "I seen him shoot him in the head."
But when later pressed by the investigator, the friend said he had not seen the actual shooting because he was walking down the stairs at the time and instead had heard details from someone in the apartment complex.
"What you are saying you saw isn't forensically possible based on the evidence," the investigator told the friend.
Shortly after that, the friend asked if he could leave.
"I ain't feeling comfortable," he said.
I crawled the thread of
Michael Brown Shooting and Aftermath and collected the quotes of those who assumed the witnesses were telling the truth: @Nice Squirrel @Sabine Grant @RavenSky @Jarhyn @Crazy Eddie @Toni @none
Trouble is that we do have more than 3 eyewitnesses who are telling the same story. This is what we know right now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown
1. there was some kind of altercation in or at the car
2. brown ran away from the car
3. the officer fired a shot (possibly hitting brown?)
4. brown turned around and put his hands in the air
5. the officer then fired at least two more shots, at least one of which hit and killed brown
6. brown was 20-30 feet away from the car at that point (supported by evidence)
The point which seems to be missed : Officer Wilson is going to have a very difficult time establishing that he fired his weapon several times based on self defense since Brown was running away and unarmed. Further if what Tiffany Mitchell reported in her interview last night is correct, Brown would have stopped following Wilson firing at him and put his hands up. However, Wilson fired his weapon several more times.
[...]
To which extent did that toxic climate influence Officer Wilson in pursuing to fire his weapon (and several times) at Brown, while he was running away and unarmed?
It does not, however, explain nor justify why the cop then proceeded to shot Michael Brown multiple times after Brown was ~~25 feet away from the patrol car with his hands in the air.
The officer DID know that he was running away with his hands up screaming 'don't shoot'. This means that the officer has to face the facts that he needs major corrective action before he is allowed to so much as LOOK at a gun.
It makes it more acceptable to shoot a suspect multiple times after they are no danger to anyone and they've put their hands up in surrender?
Right. According to the witnesses, that was the point when he turned around and threw his hands up.
Johnson isn't the only witness to contradict police versions of the shooting. At least two others have stated publicly that they witnessed the shooting and stated that Brown was far away and had his hands in the air. They were not acquainted with any of the parties involved.
The video footage being a live recording of 2 eyewitnesses of the shooting and their reaction to what they just saw. If one could venture in invalidating the narrative of other witnesses by claiming that they were changing their story to fit a "hands up" scenario, this footage captures a spontaneous reaction to what happened only minutes after the shooting.
The most recent video footage I linked to this a.m relates the spontaneous and immediate remarks made by 2 eyewitnesses to the shooting, within a short delay following the shooting. What one of the contractors exclaimed leaves NO room to interpret it any differently than his having witnessed Brown with his "hands up".
ok, the scene where there was supposedly activity between Brown and the officer was near the police cruiser, the scene where Brown was shot to death is at least 35 feet away and seperated by a duration of time, enough time for the officer to pull his weapon outside of the vehicle.
From what I remember it is apparent from the accounts of at least five witnesses that brown had his hands up, was surrendered.
There is no evidence at this time to counter the account that Wilson suffered a swollen face because of the door to the cruiser bouncing open and then closed from the officer trying to exit the vehicle, and the door hitting him in the head/face and causing the swollen head/face.
So it appears the officer was hasty to shoot as evidenced by the wild exit from the police cruiser and the shooting of an unarmed man in surrender with his hands up.
The most daring point was made by @Loren Pechtel, and it proved prophetic:
...when a black is shot you can pretty much count on black witnesses who say he was not a threat no matter what the facts are.
This claim was met by a series of accusations of racism. I actually agree. It is racist. The lesson is: sometimes racism is correct. More specifically, those who are part of an ideological movement will give misleading accounts and tell lies. That includes at least the black community of Ferguson, Missouri, with their false claims motivated by a racial identity. If a statement is racist, that does not mean it is unreasonable. A statement is unreasonable if it does not fit the evidence and the patterns of the world.
