Page:DOJ Report on Shooting of Michael Brown.djvu/27

 course, to support a prosecution of Wilson under 18 U.S.C. § 242, the weight of the evidence from those witness accounts that support a prosecution must be prove the violation beyond a reasonable doubt to twelve reasonable jurors. A prosecution will fail if the credible evidence creates "reasonable doubt" of Wilson's guilt by supporting Wilson's statements that he acted reasonably and in self-defense. The second section of summaries contains those accounts that neither inculpate Wilson nor fully corroborate Wilson's account. These witnesses, regardless of whether prosecutors determined their accounts to be credible, would not strengthen the government's case in a prosecution of Wilson. The third section of summaries contains those witness accounts that are inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence, materially inconsistent with that witness's own prior statements, or those witnesses who have recanted large portions of their accounts, admitting that they did not in fact witness the shooting as they initially claimed. Therefore, for this last category of witnesses, federal prosecutors either could not rely on their accounts to support a prosecution of Darren Wilson or did not consider their accounts in making a prosecutive decision.

Witness 102 is a 27-year-old bi-racial male. Witness 102 gave three statements. First, SLCPD detectives interviewed him; second, FBI agents interviewed him; third, Witness 102 testified before the county grand jury.

Witness 102 was doing house repairs on a residence on Canfield Drive when the shooting occurred. Witness 102 first noticed Brown and Witness 101 walking down Canfield Drive about 20 minutes prior to the shooting when he went to his truck to retrieve a broom. Brown's size initially drew Witness 102's attention. When Witness 102 later came back outside to get another tool, he noticed Wilson's SUV parked in the middle of the street at an angle, with the driver's side closer to the center of the street. Witness 102's vantage point was street level, about 450 feet from the SUV with a view of the driver's side of the SUV.

According to Witness 102, he saw Brown standing on the driver's side of the SUV, bent over with his body through the driver's window from the waist up. Witness 102 explained that Brown was "wrestling" through the window, but he was unable to see what Wilson was doing. After a few seconds, Witness 102 heard a gunshot. Immediately, Brown took off running in the opposite direction from where Witness 102 was standing. Witness 102 heard something metallic hit the ground. Witness 102 thought that he had just witnessed the murder of a police officer because a few seconds passed before Wilson emerged from the SUV. Wilson then chased Brown with his gun drawn, but not pointed at Brown, until Brown abruptly turned around at a nearby driveway. Witness 102 explained that it made no sense to him why Brown turned around. Brown did not get on the ground or put his hands up in surrender. In fact, Witness 102 told investigators that he knew "for sure that [Brown's] hands were not above his head." Rather,