Ferguson officer Darren Wilson: 'I know I did my job right'
Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson says he couldn't have done anything differently in his confrontation with Michael Brown to have prevented the 18-year-old's shooting death.
Wilson made his first public statements Tuesday during an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos. He offered details of the Aug. 9 shooting like those contained in his grand jury testimony, released a day earlier after it was decided he wouldn't be indicted in the death.
Wilson says he felt like it was his duty to chase Brown after a confrontation at his police vehicle. When asked about witness accounts that Brown at one point turned toward Wilson and put his hands up, he responded, “That would be incorrect.”
He told Stephanopoulos he has a clean conscience because “I know I did my job right.”
Here's most of what he told George Stephanopoulos as seen on ABC News' website Tuesday night:
Brown was walking down the middle of the road on the yellow line when Wilson asked him to move over. Brown didn't, Wilson said.
“As I opened the door I said, 'Hey, come here for a minute,' and that's when he said, 'What the (expletive) are you gonna do about it?” and slammed my door shut on me.”
“I used my door to try to push him back. He just pushed my door shut and stares at me, and as I looked back the punches start flying.”
“He threw the first one and hit the left side of my face.”
Why didn't you try to pull him into the car, Stephanopoulos asked.
“That would be against every training ever taught to any law enforcement officer.”
“I don't know what or how many hit me after that, I just know there was a barrage of swinging and grabbing and pulling for about 10 seconds.”
“I had reached out my window with my right hand to grab onto his forearm because I was going to try to move him and get out of the car so I'm no longer trapped, and I just felt the immense power he had. It was like a 5-year-old grabbing onto Hulk Hogan. That's just how big this man was. ... He was very large. He was a very powerful man.”
“As I'm holding him I see him coming back around with his left hand, and it come through the window and just a solid punch on the right side of my face.”
“The next thing was, how do I survive? ... I didn't know if I would be able to stand another hit like that.”
“I take (my gun) out and I point it at him, and what I said was, 'Get back or I'm gonna shoot you.'”
“He immediately grabbed the top of my gun, and when he grabbed it he said you're too much of a (expletive) to shoot me.”
“And while he's doing that, I could feel his hand trying to come over my hand and ... try to shoot me with my own gun. And that's when I pulled the trigger for the first time.”
“It didn't go off. The gun actually was being jammed by his hand being on top of the firearm so I tried again, and again another click.”
“(That's when I thought) this has to work or I'm gonna be dead. He's gonna get this gun away from me, something's gonna happen, and I'm gonna be dead.”
“I pull (the trigger) a third time and it finally goes off.”
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“He gets even angrier ... his aggression, his face, his intensity just increases, and he comes back in at me again. I wasn't looking at him. I was just ... expecting another hit. ... Then I go to exit my car, and when I'm getting out I used my walkie and said, 'Shots fired, send more cars.' And I start chasing after Michael Brown.”
Why did he give chase and not just let him run away?
“My job isn't just to sit and wait. I have to see where this guy goes. ... I mean that's what we were trained to do.”
After Brown gets about 30-40 feet away, he stops?
“He does stop. When he stopped, he turned and faced me, and as he does that, his right hand goes into his waistband and his left hand as a fist at his side, and he starts charging me.”
“My initial thought was, is there a weapon in there? ... We're taught, let me see your hands.”
A lot of witnesses said Brown had his hands up, Stephanopoulos said.
“That would be incorrect. No way,” Wilson said.
“At that time I gave myself another mental check. Can I shoot this guy? Legally can I? And the question I answered to myself was I have to; if I don't he will kill me if he gets to me.”
“Once he's coming in my direction, if he hasn't stopped yet, when's he gonna stop?”
“After he's coming at me and I decide to shoot, I fired a series of shots and I paused.
“I noticed at least one of them hit him. I didn't know where, but I saw his body kind of just flinch a little, and after that I yelled at him and said stop, get on the ground, giving him the opportunity to stop, and he ignored all the commands and he just kept running. And so after he began running again I shot another series of shots, and at least one of those hit him because I saw the flinch.”
“Well this time he's about 15 feet away, so I start backpedaling because he's just getting too close and he's still not stopping. He gets to about 8 to 10 feet, and as he does that he starts to lean forward like he's gonna tackle me, and I look down my barrel of my gun and I fired. And what I saw was his head, and that's where it went.”
“After the supervisor got there I gave him the brief rundown of what happened. I said I had to shoot somebody. ... (Brown) had grabbed my gun and he had charged me and he was going to kill me.”
Wilson said there absolutely was nothing he would do differently, even if Michael Brown had been white.
Will the shooting haunt Wilson? “I don't think it's haunting. It's always gonna be something that happened.”
“The reason I have a clean conscience is because I know I did my job right,” Wilson said.
Stephanopoulos said that Wilson said he's sorry the Browns' son lost his life, he knows there's nothing he can say that's going to make them feel better.
* The Associated Press contributed to this report.