November 26, 2014

The grand jury investigating the police shooting of Michael Brown heard from more than 60 witnesses — including some who saw the confrontation from their cars, homes or the street. The documents show the jurors who ultimately decided not to indict Officer Darren Wilson had to sift through accounts that often conflicted with each other. Here are some excerpts from the police interviews and testimony:
A person watching from their apartment balcony:
“I see a guy on the side, on the driver’s side of a police vehicle. I just see something going on through the window, like a tussling going on through the window…
“The moment they take off running, I see the officer immediately gets out of his vehicle, pull out his gun definitely in his shooting position, and let me see. Mike must have probably made it about right here in front of this driveway, as I said before, he didn’t make to there, he just when he gets out of the car he just immediately starts shoot…
“He’s taking like large steps so I didn’t see him like run or anything, so he is just taking large steps, you know, towards him, you know, while his back is turned toward him.
“[After grabbing my phone] …I see Mr. Brown kind of bent down a little bit with his arms tucked in like on his stomach so now I’m thinking that he’s now shot. He was going down, definitely so, and the officer just let out a few more rounds to him and he hit the ground and that’s when I see blood...
“I didn’t see the hands go up. I didn’t see no hands go up.”
A person watching from the street:
“It appeared as they were wrestling through the window and one gunshot had let off. And Mr. Brown took off running and my first thought was like ‘oh my gosh’ did I just witness a police officer being murdered because it took a while for the police officer to get out of the car and pursue the suspect.
“And I wanna say maybe six seconds, but it seemed like it was forever after the first gunshot. So, the police officer exited the vehicle with his weapon drawn pursuing Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown was quite a distance and he stopped and when he stopped he didn’t get down on the ground or anything. He turned around and he did some type of movement and he started charging towards the police officer.
“The police officer then returned fire, well not returned fire, open fire on Mr. Brown. Um, If I had to guess the shots and the distance between him and Mr. Brown, it would have to be five to ten yards and the shots that were fired was four, five to shots fired and Mr. Brown was still standing up.
“Um, and my thoughts was while he’s missing this guy this close, is he hitting him or because Mr. Brown there was no reaction from him to show that he was been hit. Um, after that, Mr. Brown then paused. He stopped running and when he stopped running the police officer stopped firing.
“And, then Mr. Brown continued, started again to charge towards him and after that the police officer returned fire and um well not returned fire and um well not returned. I’m using the wrong … started to fire once more at him. Um, if I had to guess the rounds that were fired then it would be four to five more shots and after that Mr. Brown collapsed and fell to the ground.”
Person in a third-floor apartment
“I couldn’t really tell what was going on. It was just a lot of movement going on by the window of the car...
"So I’m looking at the officer chase Michael down the street.”
“And at this time, I heard another shot fired while they were running. After that, [Brown] then turn[s], had his hands in the air, by the time that I saw him have his hands in the air he got shot. I heard two shots like specifically in my head, I saw those two shots. And he dropped down like kinda drop hands first, then knee, then face and everything else.”
Person pulling up near the scene in his car:
“I seen a young man standing near the cruiser, you head two shots fired And then a police officer hopped out of his cruiser and started chasing him, the dude turned back around and started charging towards the police officer, the police officer told him to stop at least three times…
“He was still down the street, he was running back…he put his hands up for a few seconds and then put his arms down and kind of put them close to his chest and he started running.
“And the boy wouldn’t stop, he fired three rounds, the dude kept running, fired four more rounds, and the finished off the rounds I guess, and he fell on the ground dead.”
Person walking on the street:
“I saw the officer back his van up and hit the two boys. Um, immediately his friend took off and…Mike he started like fighting with the officer through his window. I don’t know why they were fighting through the window but then you heard the first shot and all the cars on the street stopped. They started backing up.
“Then he, uh, started running. He stopped halfway and turned around and that’s when you heard the rest of the shows. And I don’t have really good eyes so I couldn’t see like exactly where he got hit or anything like that. But it was about seven, eight shots that I heard…And like he did have his hands up. People wasn’t just saying that. He did turn around and put his hands up.”
NBC