White Witness: Michael Brown Had His Hands Up

A witness described by some media outlets as white has given his account of the Michael Brown shooting. One of two construction workers who gave accounts to the FBI, he says that Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson chased Brown, shot at him from behind, and when Brown turned around with his hands up, shot him several more times, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports via the Daily Mail. But a key question remains: whether Brown was moving menacingly at Wilson when the officer fired. When Wilson first shot at Brown from behind, the worker says, Brown stumbled, stopped, and said, "OK, OK, OK, OK, OK."

Then Brown moved toward Wilson, who was standing 10 feet away with gun drawn: "He's kind of walking back toward the cop," the worker tells the Post-Dispatch. At that point Wilson apparently opened fire while backing up, and kept shooting when Brown's hands began falling after the third shot. But it wasn't clear whether Brown's movement was "a stumble to the ground" or "OK, I’m going to get you, you’re already shooting me," says the worker. Global Grind reports both witnesses as white, and the Atlanta Black Star notes that "interestingly," the Post-Dispatch "never mentions that the two new witnesses are white, as if the paper thought that information wasn’t relevant or important." (The worker's account echoes that of Brown's friend Dorian Johnson.)