Page:DOJ Report on Shooting of Michael Brown.djvu/59

 Brown's hands for federal prosecutors and agents, he wavered from a position of surrender to one indicative of a person trying to maintain balance.

Contrary to the autopsy results establishing that the shot to the top of Brown's head would have incapacitated Brown almost immediately, both contractors insisted that Brown continued to move toward Wilson as far as 20, 25, or even 30 feet after the final shots. Witness 122 described Brown as walking "dead on his feet, and then he just fell forward." Later, both contractors admitted that they did not actually see Brown fall to the ground, because their view was obstructed by the corner of a building.

Witness 122 insisted that there were three officers present during the shootings, demonstrating the inaccuracy of his perception. Witness 122 described three uniformed police officers engaged with Brown in a "triangle formation" at the time of the shootings. Witness 122 described a heavyset, older officer, and two "skinny, little people," one of whom was possibly a female and the other with dark hair and a moustache, who was a head shorter than the heavyset officer. Witness 122 described the shooter as the heavyset officer. Witness 122 explained that the heavset officer shot until he ran out of bullets, and then the shorter officer with the moustache trained his gun on Brown, but did not shoot. These statements cannot be reconciled with the fact that Wilson was the only officer present when Brown was shot and that Wilson has a slim build. Witness 122 also explained that he did not see Witness 101 at all during the shooting itself, and did not understand how Witness 101 could claim to see everything if he was hiding behind a car. Witness 122 also said that contrary to what was reported in the media, Brown did not say, "Don't shoot."

The contractors, apparently unwittingly, were captured on a widely circulated video taken several minutes after the shooting while responding officers were securing the scene with crime scene tape. That video depicts another individual yelling, "He wasn't no threat at all," as Witness 122 put his hands up and stated, "He had his fucking hands in the air." As detailed below, two other witnesses, Witness 128 and Witness 137, each took credit for making the statement, "He wasn't no threat at all." Both of those witnesses have since acknowledged to federal agents and prosecutors that they did not, in fact, know whether Brown was a threat.

According to the Brown family, Witness 122 called them after the shooting and told them that he had seen Wilson shoot Brown execution-style as Brown was on his knees holding his hands in the air. However, Witness 122 denied making any statements about the nature of the shooting to the Brown family. As mentioned, despite his earlier statements, Witness 122 recanted the claim that he actually saw Brown fall dead to the ground.

Witness 122 has no criminal history. As detailed above, material portions of Witness 122's accounts are irreconcilable with the physical and forensic evidence. These accounts are also inconsistent with each other and inconsistent with credible witness accounts. Accordingly, after a thorough review of all of the evidence, federal prosecutors determined this witness's accounts not to be credible and therefore do not support a prosecution of Darren Wilson.