WaPo: Evidence Supports Officer Darren Wilson's Account of Ferguson Shooting

For one thing, the evidence suggests that there was in fact a close-quarters struggle over Wilson's weapon.

Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown after they fought for control of the officer’s gun and after Brown moved toward Wilson as they faced off in the street, according to interviews, news accounts and the full report of the St. Louis County autopsy of Brown’s body....

[M]ore than a half-dozen unnamed black witnesses have provided testimony to a St. Louis County grand jury that largely supports Wilson’s account of events of Aug. 9, according to several people familiar with the investigation who spoke with The Washington Post.

Some of the physical evidence -- including blood spatter analysis, shell casings and ballistics tests -- also supports Wilson’s account of the shooting, The Post's sources said, which cast Brown as an aggressor who threatened the officer's life. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they are prohibited from publicly discussing the case.

....

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch late Tuesday night published Brown’s official county autopsy report, an analysis of which also suggests the 18-year-old may not have had his hands raised when he was fatally shot, as has been the contention of protesters who have demanded Wilson’s arrest.

Experts told the newspaper that Brown was first shot at close range and may have been reaching for Wilson's weapon while the officer was still in his vehicle and Brown was standing at the driver's side window. The autopsy found material "consistent with products that are discharged from the barrel of a firearm" in a wound on Brown’s thumb, the autopsy says.

Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist in San Francisco who reviewed the report for the Post-Dispatch, said it "supports the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has gunpowder particulate material in the wound."

A writer (wish I could remember who, so I could credit him) speculated that this information was being leaked deliberately -- with an okay from Holder's DoJ -- in order to let the Ferguson protesters down easily, to let them know what is coming.

Which may be a wise notion.

One protester put it succinctly: "If there is not an indictment, excuse my French, all hell is going to break loose."

posted by Ace at 03:27 PM

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