“He grabs my gun, says, ‘you’re too much of a pu**y to shoot me.” The gun goes down into my hip and at that point I thought I was getting shot. I can feel his fingers try to get inside the trigger guard with my finger and I distinctly remember envisioning a bullet going into my leg. I thought that was the next step.” That’s how Ferguson, Missouri Officer Darren Wilson described the struggle inside his police SUV with Michael Brown during his grand jury testimony. You can read the rest of his blow-by-blow of here. If you watched St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Bob McCullough’s detailed description of the process last night, you know that investigators had to wade through conflicting testimony of every kind from witnesses, some of whom changed their stories, some of whom disappeared into thin air as time went on . . .
Wilson recounted pulling the trigger on his SIG .40 caliber P229 twice during the struggle…and hearing nothing but clicks. It finally fired on the third pull, sending a round into the car door. After another misfire, he racked the slide and tried again. The gun fired, apparently grazing Brown’s thumb. All while Wilson was trying to fend off Brown, an experience he described as “like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan” (Wilson himself is 6’4″).
The struggle occurred before Brown attempted to get away, eventually turning and charging Wilson, provoking the shots that killed him. That’s Wilson’s testimony, at least.
Should the officer’s account be uncritically accepted? Of course not. Being human, he has the same biases, memory gaps and self interest anyone else does. But when it came down to voting on the five charges the prosecutor presented, the members of the grand jury decided that, all things considered, there wasn’t enough compelling reason to believe that a crime had been committed by the cop.
And though McCullough has released all of the evidence that was presented to the grand jury, none of that will make one whit of difference to those who believe that Brown a gentle giant, unjustly harassed. That he was murdered simply for being black. The protestors, rioters, looters and arsonists believe what they believe and no amount of evidence to the contrary will disabuse them of the opinion that. As they see it, in addition to Wilson, the system should be indicted, too. And so it goes.