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| From L-R, Darren Wilson and Michael Brown |
Two FBI agents have been shot in St. Louis, near riot-ravaged Ferguson, after attending a siege at someone's home. The shootings which occurred at 3.15am today may not be unconnected to the protests happening a few miles away
Tuesday night saw dozens more protestors arrested as violence continued to rage in the city over the grand jury decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson.
The 28-year-old officer spoke with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos at a secret location less than 24 hours after the decision was announced, and walked the Good Morning America co-anchor through each step of the confrontation which culminated in Wilson firing his gun for the first time in his law enforcement career, killing an unarmed Brown.
Wilson says he was driving to get lunch that day when he came across Brown and his friend Johnson walking down the middle of a street in Ferguson, and that he pulled up next to them and asked them to move to the sidewalk.
He says the two ignored his request and it was then that he noticed Brown carrying a handful of cigarillos - the same items stolen in a convenience store robbery he heard reported over the his police radio earlier.
Wilson says he ‘probably never would have noticed the cigarillos’ if Brown ‘had just followed orders’. Wilson says he would have left the two alone, and driven off in search of food as he was doing before.
Instead, Wilson says Brown was defensive from the start of their conversation, saying ‘f*** what you have to say’ when the officer asked him to move off the street.
Noticing the cigarillos in Brown’s hand, and how Johnson’s clothing matched the description in the robbery report, Wilson called for back-up and then pulled his car out in front of the pair to block their path.
Wilson says he planned to get out of the SUV and talk to the pair until back-up arrived, but that Brown slammed his driver’s door shut when he attempted to exit the vehicle, saying ‘what the f*** are you going to do about it?’
The officer then tried to push out the door to free himself from the vehicle, but says Brown kept pushing the door shut and eventually reached his hands into the vehicle to throw the first punch.
For the next 10 seconds, Wilson and Brown were engaged in a fist fight and the cop says it was then that he ‘felt the immense power’ 6-foot-4, 292-pound Brown had. Wilson is the same height and 210 pounds. Wilson has repeatedly used the analogy that he felt like a five-year-old grappling with Hulk Hogan.
He was a very large, a very powerful man,’ Wilson recalled.
Afraid that the next blow could render him unconscious, Wilson says his training kicked in and overrode his actions. He says he immediately ruled out mace, saying it could have been used to disable Brown but that Brown could have grabbed it and used it against him as well.
‘The only option left was my firearm,’ Wilson said.
But when Wilson reached for the handgun on his hip, he claims Brown reached for the weapon and tried to turn it around to shoot the officer.
Wilson was eventually able to wiggle the weapon free and turn it towards Brown, warning: ‘Get back or I’m going to shoot you’.
‘You’re too much of a p**** to shoot me,’ Wilson recalls Brown replying.
Brown continued to struggle for the gun, and it jammed the first two times that Wilson tried to pull the trigger. He was successful on the third try, firing the first shot at Brown from inside his vehicle. It was the first time Wilson ever fired his gun in his five-year career as a police officer, he revealed.
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| Shooting scene: Brown is pictured lying on the ground after being shot dead by Wilson on August 9 this year |
He says that first shot startled both himself and Brown, who backed up a few inches.
‘We were both in shock. It was shocking having to pull the trigger. It was also shocking that this was the only option that I had,’ Wilson said.
But he says the shot didn’t stop Brown, and that he actually became ‘even angrier’ coming back at the officer again.
Wilson responded by firing more shots, that sent Brown running away from the vehicle,
He says he then called for back up again, saying shots had been fired. That was a call that none of his fellow-officers received. WIlson claims it’s because the radio had been turned from channel 1 to 3 in the midst of the struggle with Brown.
Wilson says he then gave chase to Brown, saying it’s not his job to ‘sit and wait’ and he needed to keep the teen in sight for when back-up arrived.
That’s when Brown turned around and starting coming back towards the officer. Wilson says he also saw the teen reach towards his waistband, and feared Brown may be concealing a weapon - though some witness accounts, including Johnson, said Brown was lifting his hands in surrender.
‘My initial thought was, is there a weapon in there?’ Wilson said.
As the teen started ‘charging’ towards him, Wilson said he feared for his life and thought: ‘Can I shoot this guy? Legally can I? And the answer was I have to, he will kill me if he gets to me.’
He fired a series a shots, and believes at least one of the bullets hit the teen. He says he then ordered Brown to stop and get on the ground, but that the teen kept running.
Wilson fired a second series of shots and again ordered Brown to get on the ground and said the teen seemed ‘unfazed’.
When Brown was just 15 feet away, Wilson started ‘backpedaling’ afraid that Brown would lean forward and tackle him and that’s when he fired the fatal shots into the teen's head.
‘I saw the face he had go black,’ Wilson recalled.
As Brown fell to the ground, Wilson says he landed on his face and that his feet were thrown up into their air because of the speed he was running at.
‘I knew immediately that he had passed,’ Wilson said.
However, Wilson says he could not have done anything differently to have prevented Brown’s death.
He also denies witness allegations that he appeared to have snapped during the altercation saying ‘the only emotion I ever felt was fear and then it was survival and training’.
Wilson is also adamant that race did not play a role in his actions that day, and that he would have ‘no question’ shot Brown if he were white, given the same circumstances.
While Wilson believes he performed his job correctly, he says there is always remorse involved in the loss of a life and he expressed his sympathies to Brown’s family.
‘I’m sorry that their son lost his life. It wasn’t the intention of the day. It was what occurred that day and there's nothing you can say that’s going to make a parent feel better,’ he said
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| A police squad car is turned over by demonstrators during protests in Ferguson |
Meanwhile, Missouri's governor has deployed a total 2,200 National Guardsman to Ferguson following Monday night's destruction, thousands more demonstrators convened in a scene which quickly turned ugly.
The total number of arrests has now topped 80, as angry protestors smashed the widows of a police car and set it alight as they cheered and shouted: 'F*** the police!'
Culled from DAILY MAIL
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