Here is the full text of Darren Wilson's grand jury testimony

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Tuesday, November 25, 2014

FERGUSON, MO -- BELOW IS THE GRAND JURY TESTIMONY OF OFFICER DARREN WILSON, WHO FATALLY SHOT MICHAEL BROWN IN FERGUSON

Warning: Contains adult language and content

See a breakdown of the highlights of this statement here.

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It was a pretty laid-back call. It was for a sick infant .... While on the sick case call, a call came out for a stealing in progress from the local market on West Florissant, that the suspects traveling towards QT ... i did hear that a suspect was wearing a black shirt and that a box of Cigarillos was stolen ... It was not my call, I heard the call ...

Question So, you weren't really geared to handle that call?

No

Question: So your mace is on your left side and your gun is on your right side?

Correct ....

I see them walking down the middle of the street. And first thing that struck me was they're walking in the middle of the street. I had already seen a couple cars trying to pass, but they couldn't have traffic normal because they were in the middle ... the next thing I noticed was the size of the individuals because either the first one was really small or the second one was really big ... I didn't know this then, but the first one's name was Dorian Johnson, the second one was Michael Brown ... I had never seen them before ...

Brown had bright yellow socks on that had green marijuana leaves as a pattern on them ...

As Johnson came around my driver's side mirror i said, 'why don't you guys walk on the sidewalk.' He kept walking, as he is walking he said, 'we are almost to our destination." ...

Brown was starting to come around the mirror and as he came around the mirror i said, 'well, what's wrong with the sidewalk.' Brown then replied ... '(expletive) what you have to say.' And when he said that, it drew my attention totally to Brown. It was a very unusual and not expected response from a simple request ....

first thing I notice is in his right hand, his hand is full of Cigarillos. And that's when it clicked for me ... I did a doublecheck that Johnson was wearing a black shirt, these are the two from the stealing ...

I got on my radio and Frank 21 is my call sign that day, i said Frank 21 I'm on Canfield with two, send me another car. I then placed my car in reverse and backed up ... the back of my vehicle to cut them off ...

I go to open the door and i say, hey, come here for a minute to Brown. As I'm opening the door he turns, faces me, looks at me and says, 'what the (expletive) are you going to do about it,' and shuts my door, slammed it shut ... he was just staring at me, almost like to intimidate me or to overpower me. The intense face he has was just not what i expected ...

I then opened my door again and used my door to push him backwards ... i tell him to 'get the (expletive) back' ... He then grabs my door again and shuts my door. At that time is when i saw him coming into my vehicle. His head was higher than the top of my car. And I see him ducking and as he is ducking, his hands are up and he is coming in my vehicle ... I don't remember seeing him come at me, but I was hit right here in the side of the face with a fist ... i think it was a full-on swing, but not a full shot ... significant amount of contact that was made to my face ... i believe it was his right hand ...He turns like this and now the Cigarillos i see in his left hand ... he reaches back and he says, 'hey man, hold these." I'm assuming to Johnson but I couldn't see Johnson ... at that point i tried to hold his right arm and use my left hand to get out to have some type of control and not be trapped in my car any more. And when i grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a 5 year old holding onto Hulk Hogan ... I see his hand coming back around like this and he hit me with this part of his right hand ... next thing I remember is how do I get this guy away from me. What do I do not to get beaten inside my car ... I considered using my mace, however, i wasn't willing to sacrifice my left hand, which is blocking my face ... I wear contacts, if that touches any part of my eyes, then I can't see at all ... The whole time, I can't tell you if he was swinging at me or grabbing me or pushing me or what, but there was just stuff going on ... Next I considered my flashlight ... (but) would it even be effective ... So the only other option I thought I had was my gun. I drew my gun, I turned ... He is standing there. I said, 'get back or I'm going to shoot you.' He immediately grabs my gun and says, 'you are too much of a pussy to shoot me.' ... My gun was basically pointed this way ... but he grabs it with his right one and he twists it and then he digs it down into my hip ... I felt that another one of those punches in my face could knock me out or worse ... I've already taken two to the face and I didn't think I would, the third one could be fatal if he hit me right ... (Wilson is shown pictures of himself at the hospital on August 9th and asked why he went to the hospital) For my face being swollen ... They had discovered there that i had scratches on the back of my neck ... I had a swollen right cheek, my left they said was swollen, I had scratches around my hairline in the back and I think on the side of my neck, but that's all I remember ... (Wilson points out the photos showing swelling) ...

It is hard to tell from the pictures and that angle. I think the best one was looking straight forward at me ...

(Wilson goes back to how the gun was pointed down at his hip) I can feel his fingers try to get inside the trigger guard with my finger and I distinctly remember envisioning a bullet going into my leg ... when I slid, I let him use his momentum to push it down and it was kind of pointed to where the seat buckle would attach on the floorboard on the side of my car ... When I did get it up to this point, he is still holding onto it and i pulled the trigger and nothing happens, it just clicked. I pull it again, it just clicked again. At this point I'm like why isn't this working, this guy is going to kill me ... I pulled it a third time, it goes off ... it shot through my door panel and my window was down and glass flew out of my door panel ... When i see the glass come up, it comes, a chunk about that big comes across my right hand and then I notice I have blood on the back of my hand ... i looked at him ... he kind of stepped back ... he looked up at me and had the most intense aggressive face ... it looks like a demon, that's how angry he looked. He comes back towards me again with his hands up. At that point I just went like this, i tried to pull the trigger again, click, nothing happened ... I just saw his hands up, i don't know if they were closed yet, on the way to going closed, I saw this and that face coming at me again, and i just went like this and i shielded my face ...

Question: did he hit you at that time?

Yes .... So I pulled the trigger, it just clicks that time. Without even looking, i just grab the top of my gun, the slide and i racked it ... i pulled the trigger again, it goes off ... It went off twice in the car. Pull, click, click, went off, click, went off. So twice in the car ... When I look up after that, i see him start to run and i see a cloud of dust behind him ... As I'm getting out of the car i tell dispatch, 'shots fired, send me more cars.' We start running ...

I remember seeing him running towards the light pole. We pass two cars that were behind my police car while we were running ... When i passed the second one, about the same time he stopped running and he is at that light pole. When he stopped, I stopped. And then he starts to turn around, i tell him to get on the ground, get on the ground. He turns, and when he looked at me, he made like a grunting ... he turns and he's coming back towards me. His first step is coming towards me, he kind of does like a stutter step to start running. When he does that, his left hand goes in a fist and goes to his side, his right one goes under his shirt in his waistband and he starts running at me ... As he is coming towards me, i tell, keep telling me to get on the ground, he doesn't. I shoot a series of shots. I don't know how many i shot, i just know i shot it. I know I missed a couple, I don't know how many, but I know I hit him at least once because I saw his body kind of jerk or flenched. It remember having tunnel vision on his right hand ... when i was shooting ... after the last shot my tunnel vision kind of opened up. I remember seeing the smoke from the gun and I kind of looked at him and he's still coming at me, he hadn't slowed down. At this point i start backpedaling and again, i tell him get on the ground, get on the ground, he doesn't. I shoot another round of shots. Again, I don't recall how many it was or if I hit him every time. I know at least once because he flinched again. At this point it looked like he was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that I'm shooting at him. And the face that he had was looking straight through me, like I wasn't even there ... Well, he keeps coming at me after that again, during the pause i tell him to get on the ground, get on the ground, he still keeps coming at me, gets about 8 to 10 feet away. At this point I'm backing up pretty rapidly, I'm backpedaling pretty good because i know if he reaches me, he'll kill me. And he had started to lean forward as he got that close, like he was going to just tackle me, just go right through me ... His hand was in a fist at his side, this one is in his waistband under his shirt, and he was like this. Just coming straight at me like he was going to run right through me. And when he gets about that 8 to 10 feet away, i look down, i remember looking at my sites and firing, all i see is his head and that's what i shot. I don't know how many, i know at least once because I saw the last one go into him. And then when it went into him, the demeanor on his face went blank, the aggression was gone, it was gone, i mean, i knew he stopped, the threat was stopped. When he fell, he fell on his face ... i remember his feet coming up, like he had so much momentum carrying him forward when he fell, his feet kind of came up a little bit and then they rested. At that point i got back on the radio and said, 'send me a supervisor and every car you got.' ....

Question: Did you know that radio dispatch did not go out (after 2 shots fired in the car and Darren Wilson ran

No, I didn't find out until later while I was actually driving back to the station that my portable radio was on channel 3 and our main channel was channel 1.

Question: So nobody heard you say shots fired to your knowledge?

To my knowledge

Question about why Darren Wilson ran after Michael Brown

My main goal was to keep eyes on him and just to keep him contained until i had people coming there .... If I could buy 30 seconds of time, someone else will be here, we can make the arrest, nothing happens, we are all good ...

Question: when the second shot was fired inside the car, did you think he was hit at all?

No I thought I missed ...

Question - Wilson is asked why Michael Brown turned around after running away

His whole reaction to the whole thing was something I've never seen. I've never seen that much aggression so quickly from a simple request to just walk on the sidewalk

police arrive and start taping off the area and Darren Wilson's sergeant arrives

I said I have to tell you what happened. And he goes, what happened. I said, I had to kill him. He goes, you what? I said, he grabbed my gun, I shot him, I killed him. He goes, go sit in the car. I said, I cannot sit in the car. I remember him saying, Darren, sit in the car. I said Sarge, I can't be singled out. it is already getting hostile, I can't be singled out in the car. I will leave if you want me to leave. He said, take my car and leave. So I got in his car and I drove to the police station ....

Question: In your mind him grabbing the gun is what made the difference where you felt you had to use a weapon to stop him?

Yes. Once he was hitting me in the face, that enough, was in my mind to authorize the use of force ...

Question: I wanted to ask you about your relationship with the residents in the Canfield Green Apartments

It is an antipolice area for sure ... There's lots of gangs that reside or associate with that area. There's a lot of violence in that area, there's a lot of gun activity, drug activity, it is just not a very well-liked community. That community doesn't like the police ....

Question: so you drive back to Ferguson by yourself ... what do you do?

I immediately go to the bathroom. On the way back i found that i had blood on the inside of my left hand and I already know I had it on the back of my right hand ... everything we have always been taught about blood, you don't want it on you, you don't touch it, you don't come in contact with it ... so thinking that i was cut with someone else's blood on me, i had to wash my hands ... (Darren then sees his friend at the station and talks to him and asks for a pair of gloves) put the gloves on. I grab an evidence envelope, take my gun out of the holster, make it safe ... I put it all in that bag, seal it with evidence tape and then sign it ...

(asked why he wore gloves) To preserve any evidence on there, I knew his DNA was on that gun ... I knew that he had fingerprints on it and possibly even sweat .. when I took it out, i also saw blood on it ...

Question: Is it procedure for you to make your gun safe in a shooting like this

I don't really know (because had he not investigated this type of crime ... I sat down and called for my attorney, who represents police for the union ... he gave me the card for the application for the Fraternal Order of Police. I said, I already called them. He said would you like to tell me what happened so I can tell the media? I said, no, I don't want to talk right now ... I left the scene pretty much right after ... my assistant chief showed up, he came in and he made the determination that we should go to the hospital, he could see the swelling on my face ... assistant chief drove me to the hospital and Detective (blank) followed ... At the hospital we did the interview ... While waiting to be treated in the waiting room, not in the waiting room, the actual hospital room, Detective (blank) began his interview and then stopped as needed for nurses, whoever came in. They took x-rays, prescribed me a painkiller for the face injuries ...

Questions where Darren Wilson worked before Ferguson: Jennings and Pine Lawn for 8 hours

Question Any other incidents where you have been involved where you had to use excessive force?

I've never used my weapon before ... I've used my asp before, I have used my flashlight before and i have used OC spray before ... (no injuries)

Question Have you always worked in predominantly African-American neighborhoods?

Yes I have ...

Question: You said you knew the area and you felt threatened in that area because there is violence and guns and everything, and that Michael Brown was being confrontational before the first blow ... Is there any reason why you didn't wait in the car until your backup came?

I thought i would be able to just stall until someone got there ... i figure all i needed was 20 or 30 seconds and someone is going to be there ... my comfort zone is not to be sitting in the car talking to someone else. I wanted to be out of the car, that way if I need to run I can run ... But I also didn't want him to run away, so I need to kind of stay where I can keep him there, keep myself safe and wait for someone to get there ...

Question: did you ever at any time fire with his back facing you?

No I did not ....

Question about Michael Brown grabbing his gun

He didn't pull it from my holster, but whenever it was displayed to him, he did take complete control. Because he had twisted it around so my hand was no longer this way, it was bent this way and it was dug into my hip. He had complete control of that weapon at that time ...

Questions about if he ever wrote down what happened

My statement had been written for my attorney ... The department has not asked me for anything ...

Question: You didn't just on your own decide i want to write this down while it is all fresh in my mind, you didn't do that yourself?

No .....

DARREN WILSON IS ASKED AT THE VERY END IF THERE IS ANYTHING THAT HE WANTS THE JURORS TO KNOW AND HE ASKED THE BEST QUESTION

One of the thing you guys haven't asked that has been asked of me in other interviews is, was he a threat, was Michael Brown a threat when he was running away. People asked why would you chase him if he was running away now. I had already called for assistance. If someone arrives and sees him running, another offices and goes around the back half of the apartment complexes and tries to stop him, what would stop him from doing what he just did to me to him or worse ... he still posed a threat, not only to me, to anybody else that confronted him.

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