Ferguson Cop: I Was Pinned in Car, Feared for Life

The Ferguson police officer who shot Michael Brown to death told investigators that he feared for his life and struggled with Brown over control of his gun inside the patrol car, reports the New York Times. The newspaper quotes US officials familiar with the ongoing civil rights investigation into the shooting, and those officials say that so far, the evidence doesn't support bringing charges. Wilson says that he felt pinned and that Brown punched and scratched him while trying to get control of the weapon. (Witnesses have disputed that Brown was trying to get the gun.) According to the Times' account, Wilson's gun fired twice inside the car, once hitting Brown in the arm and once missing. The teen's blood was found on the inside door, on Wilson's uniform, and on the gun.

But the story points out that one crucial element remains unexplained: Why did Wilson then get out of the car and shoot Brown multiple times? The St. Louis Post-Dispatch quotes Brown's attorney, Anthony Gray, as saying that the details about what happened inside the car don't matter much. “When you’re raising your arms to surrender, it hits a reset button,” he says, referring to witness accounts of Brown's actions. Gray doesn't dispute that the two had some kind of confrontation as Brown leaned in the driver's-side window, but he doesn't buy Wilson's argument that he feared for his life. "His actions contradict the presence of fear," he says. (More Darren Wilson stories.)