After examining the Grand Jury testimony, reading many DK (and other) blog posts, watching the TV news coverage, listening to the audio of the shots, looking at pictures of the scene with relevant facts indicated, I have come to conclude there was one major issue with Wilson's account that I have yet to hear anyone else mention (and so the reason for this post). Before I get to that, I'll mention a DK post I read last night, which made the argument that Brown could not have been charging Wilson when the final round of shots occurred. Briefly, the argument is that due to the distances known, Brown only could have been advancing toward Wilson before the "kill shot" at about two miles per hour, which is clearly not something that can be interpreted as "charging forward." This is the link to that post:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
An examination of the evidence below:
I noticed what appears to be a glaring problem in Wilson's testimony, which to my knowledge, nobody else has mentioned. So, let's go to the testimony - I'll start with the point at which Brown supposedly turns around after running perhaps 158 feet away from the police vehicle.
"...he is at that light pole. So when he stopped, I stopped. And then he starts to turn around, I tell him to get on the ground, get on the ground. He turns, and... he's coming back towards me... he kind of does a stutter step to start running... As he is coming towards me, I tell, keep telling him to get on the ground, he doesn't. I shoot a series of shots. I don't know how many I shot, I just know I shot it. I know I missed a couple, I don't know how many, but I know I hit him at least once because I saw his body kind of jerk or flenched. I remember having tunnel vision on his right hand, that's all. I'm just focusing on his right hand when I was shooting."
Why would he develop tunnel vision on one of Brown's hands after already having discharged his gun and being able to recall a great deal of detail up to that point? It's not consistent with anything I've ever heard or read about police procedure or the experiences of officers under such circumstances. Another issue to me here is his claim that Brown stopped running away for no apparent reason, but then didn't do what the officer told him to do. Moreover, there is no explanation given as to why he is shooting at Brown at that point, other than because he refuses to at least kneel before Wilson, something that is illegal, to my knowledge. In any case, we've got what must be the first six shots on the audio clip accounted for at this point.
After that Wilson states, "Well, after the last shot [presumably #6] my tunnel vision kind of opened up. I remember seeing the smoke from the gun and I kind of looked at him and he's still coming at me, he hadn't slowed down. At this point I start backpedaling and again, I tell him get on the ground, get on the ground, he doesn't. I shoot another round of shots."
So we now have another round of shots, apparently seven through ten. Wilson then talks about what Brown looks like and the suggestion is that Brown had become angry and willing to charge straight into gunfire. And then we get: "Well, he keeps coming at me after that again, during the pause I tell him to get on the ground, he still keeps coming at me, gets about 8 to 10 feet away... And when he gets about that 8 to 10 feet away, I look down, I remember looking at my sites and firing, all I see is his head and that's what I shot." So it appears this is another example of his tunnel vision issue, but which shots are these? If it's one shot, that can't be ten, because ten was in the group with eight and nine, and possibly seven as well, depending upon what you can do between that very short pause between shots seven and eight.
So, Wilson is claiming that there were three rounds of shots after Brown turned around (assuming that part of his account is accurate), which is not the case, but there's an even bigger problem. To make it as clear as I think can here is the apparent sequence of events if his account is accurate:
Brown stops running and turns around for some reason (getting shot at, becomes terribly fatigued?).
Wilson is yelling "get on the ground" (at least once), but Brown does not comply.
For some reason, Wilson decides this means he needs to shoot several rounds at Brown.
Brown keeps advancing upon Wilson; Wilson yells, "get on the ground," again, then fires another round of shots.
Wilson again yells, "get on the ground," but Brown doesn't comply and Wilson fires. He makes it sound like he only fired once that last time, but we know that three or four were fired, depending upon where one places the seventh shot.
No matter how one tries to arrange things, the audio clip doesn't coincide with his account. For example, if the seventh shot is said to be due to Brown's continued advance after the first round of shots, that can't be squared with "I shoot another round of shots." Also, and quite obvious to someone who has heard the audio, there's not enough time to yell "get on the ground" between shot seven and the final three shots. Nor do we hear anyone shouting something like "get on the ground" during the entire audio clip, which I assume the experts would have detected, at that distance.
If you want to see how impossible his account seems to be, just play the audio clip and try to picture yourself pointing a gun at someone and yelling "get on the ground" and "get on the ground, get on the ground," with a pause in between to reassess the situation, after the first six shots are fired. After those first six, I can yell, "get on the ground" only once (the way it's done on the "Cops" TV show, which is rather quick but loud), but then after the seventh shot I can't say "get on the ground" one time before the last three are fired. If I had been in charge, I would have had him help recreate the scene at the Grand Jury, then confronted him with the audio clip, and then had the audio/acoustics experts testify about whether his account was possible.
Note that I read the transcript and cited quotations from this source:
http://www.motherjones.com/....