Ferguson police did everything wrong #4

Rapidly breaking news in this case that implicates the Ferguson police as even more in the wrong than we knew.

CNN is now showing a video tape made by a neighbor who witnessed the whole shooting and aftermath.   Piaget Crenshaw says she had to go back into the house and get her phone camera, so she did not start filming until after Michael was lying dead in the street.   Putting together her account, the video, and the account of Dorian Johnson, the friend who was with Michael,  here's how I understand what happened.  What is missing, of course, is any account from the police officer himself -- which I contend is one of the things they've done wrong.

1.  Michael and Dorian were walking down the middle of the street.  This is a quiet two lane side street in a residential neighborhood.    Not a place where a couple guys walking in the street would actually cause much of a traffic problem.  Johnson says they were walking along when the police officer (who we now know was Darren Wilson) ordered them to get onto the sidewalk.  He says it quickly escalated (I gather Michael was defiant) and the officer began trying to pull Michael into the police car.   For what isn't clear.  Was he arresting him?

2.  Crenshaw, who made the video, says she was not close enough to see exactly what went on at first, except that she saw the police officer trying to pull Michael into the car;  but Michael broke free and start walking away from the police car, up the street when the officer began firing shots.   Johnson says they both started running to get away, that he hid behind a car, but Michael kept going up the street.

3.  The officer fired a few shots that missed Michael, maybe one shot grazed his arm.  He then turned around facing the officer with his hands up to show he was not armed.   Both witnesses say that he had his hands up, but the officer continued shooting.

4.  According to the autopsy, all shots entered the body from the front.   One injury on his arm is consistent with having entered either from the back or else from the front with his hands in the air.    I believe Crenshaw said that she thought a shot grazed Michael's arm, which is the point at which he turned around and held up his hands.

5.  Because she did not have her camera phone ready to record, the video begins only after Michael's body is lying in the middle of the street, estimated by her to be about 30 seconds.   Officer Darren Wilson is shown pacing beside the body;  another police officer is standing nearby.    Crenshaw said Wilson seemed in a daze, she thought, like he was having trouble taking in what he had just done.

6.  The county medical examiner, who did the first autopsy, confirmed that all shots entered the body from the front.   He also said that there was evidence of marijuana in his body.   This might have caused him to act goofy or even defiant;  but it would more likely calm him down than cause him to be violent and dangerous.

Crenshaw also says that the police confiscated her phone.  If I understood this correctly, this means the police have had this video and chose not to release it until now.

We now know that Officer Wilson left town and is at an unknown location.  All of this suggests, at worst, an attempt at cover-up on the part of the Ferguson police;  or, at best, more concern for the safety of the officer than dealing with a possible criminal action of that officer.   Unless we learn that this "unknown location" means that he is in custody somewhere.

This has all been mishandled from start to finish.   Beginning with the poor racial relations between community and police, then the combination of a provocative teenager probably mouthing off and being defiant toward an officer;   an officer with a short fuse thinking he had to take a tough approach;   and then the whole aftermath of peaceful protesters being treated like adversaries.

But the defiant teen wound up dead -- and it didn't have to be that way.   The preliminary autopsy report says he would have survived five of the six bullets.  It was only the one into the top of his head that killed him.  And three witnesses have now said that he was facing the officer with his hands up at that point.

Ralph