Civil Liberties

Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson Told Grand Jury Michael Brown Was 'Like a Demon,' Like 'Hulk Hogan'

|

In his testimony to the grand jury, Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson described Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager he shot and killed, as an almost supernatural predator whose uncanny strength put the officer at mortal risk. Brown looked "like a demon" during their encounter, Wilson testified. "When I grabbed him the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan…that's just how big he felt and how small I felt just from grasping his arm." Officer Wilson is six feet, four inches tall, and weighs 210 pounds.

Wilson's testimony also described Brown as possessing a seeming imperviousness to bullets. After being shot "at least once because he flinched," Wilson told the grand jury, Brown "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, I wasn't even anything in his way." Wilson said Brown charged him at that point, prompting the final, fatal volley of shots.

Eyewitness accounts differ over what happened in the street that day. One eyewitness claims that Brown charged Wilson. Other eyewitnesses say Brown neither charged nor threatened the officer in the street. The grand jury clearly believed Wilson's version of the events. And because Michael Brown is dead by Wilson's hand, we'll never get to learn Brown's side of the story.